Chapter 2

Anna was thankful that she couldn't see Christabel's face. She said something about infatuation and Randy's youth.

"He is twenty-one," said Christabel. "He's no younger than I was when Joewhen Joe and I were to be married. That was why Michela was here-to be a guest at the wedding and all the parties." They walked on for a few quiet steps before Christabel added: "It was the day before the wedding that they left together."

Anna said; "Has Joe changed?"

"In looks, you mean?" said Christabel, understanding. "I don't know. Perhaps. He must have changed inside. But I don't want to know that."

"Can't you send them away?"

"Randy would follow."

"Tryon Welles," suggested Anna desperately. "Maybe he could help. I don't know how, though. Talk to Randy, maybe."

"Randy wouldn't listen. Opposition makes him stubborn. Besides, he doesn't like Tryon. He's had to borrow too much money from him."

It wasn't like Christabel to be bitter. One of the dogs howled again and was joined by the others. Anna shivered.

"You are cold," said Christabel. "Run along inside, and thanks for listening. And-I think you'd better go, honey. I meant to keep you for comfort. But-"

"No, no, I'll stay-I didn't know-"

"Don't be nervous about being alone. The dogs would know if a stranger set foot on the place. Good night," said Christabel firmly, and was gone.

The guest cottage was snug and warm and tranquil, but Anna was obliged finally to read herself to sleep and derived only a small and fleeting satisfaction from the fact that it was over a rival author's book that she finally grew drowsy. She didn't sleep well even then and was glad suddenly that she'd asked for the guest cottage and was alone and safe in that tiny retreat....

Anna's dream was very real. Randy, was there, and he was naked. He stood by the bed, his thick shaft grasped tightly in his hand. Anna was smiling, totally relaxed and ready.

He spoke quietly to Anna, and though she couldn't make out the words, she knew exactly what he wanted her to do. At first she refused, but he implored her, and finally she threw off the bed covers and pulled up her nightgown. His eyes grew round as he stared between her legs. He worked his hand over his tool, and it grew larger and thicker.

Anna watched Randy, and her own hand crept between her legs; she worked her index finger between her labia, soothing and arousing at the same time.

It was what Randy wanted to see. She knew now that she had to continue-her own pleasure had been sparked by Randy's lusty attention.

She fingered herself slowly at first, her legs opening as she worked finger after finger into her lubricated vagina. She had never done it like this before, so rough and so wanton. Anna kept glancing at Randy's face, and his smile of pleasure made her moan with sensual delight. Anna worked furiously now, eager to achieve an orgasm while Randy watched.

She wanted to feel his hot seed on her breast as she climaxed and her last thought before awakening was that of Randy's throbbing member as it neared her face.

Morning was misty and chill.

It was perhaps nine-thirty when Anna opened the cottage door, saw that the mist lay thick and white, and went back to get her rubbers. Tryon Welles, she thought momentarily, catching a glimse of herself in the mirror, would have nothing at all that was florid and complimentary to say this morning. And indeed, in her brown knitted suit, with her fair hair tight and smooth and her spectacles on, she looked not unlike a chill and aloof little owl.

The path was wet, the laurel leaves shining with moisture, and the hills were looming gray shapes. The house lay white and quiet, and she saw no one about.

It was just then that it came. A heavy concussion of sound, blanketed by mist.

Anna's first thought was that Randy had shot the bullfrog.

But the pool was just below her, and no one was there.

Besides, the sound came from the house. Her feet were heavy and slow in the drenched grass-the steps were slippery and the flagstones wet. Then she was inside.

The wide hall ran straight through the house, and way down at its end Anna saw Mars. He was running away from her, his black hands out-flung, and she was vaguely conscious that he was shouting something. He vanished, and instinct drew Anna to the door at the left which led to the library.

She stopped, frozen, in the doorway.

Across the room, sagging bulkily over the arm of the green damask chair in which she'd sat the previous night, was a man. It was Joe Bromfel, and he'd been shot, and there was no doubt that he was dead.

A newspaper lay at his feet as if it had slipped there. The velvet curtains were pulled together across the window behind him.

Anna smoothed back her hair. She couldn't think at all, and she must have slipped down to the footstool near the door, for she was there when Mars, his face drawn, and Randy, white as his pajamas, came running into the room. They were talking excitedly and were examining a revolver which Randy had picked up from the floor. Then Tryon Welles came from somewhere, stopped beside her, uttered an incredulous exclamation, and ran across the room too. Then Christabel came and stopped, too, on the threshold, and became under Anna's very eyes a different woman-a strange woman, shrunken and gray, who said in a dreadful voice: "Joe-Joe-"

Only Anna heard or saw her. It was Michela, hurrying from the hall, who first voiced the question.

"I heard something-what was it? What-" She brushed past Christabel.

"Don't look, Michela!"

But Michela looked, steadily and long. Then her flat dark eyes went all around the room and she said: "Who shot him?"

For a moment there was utter shocked stillness.

Then Mars cleared his throat and spoke to Randy.

"I don' know who shot him, Mista Randy. But I saw him killed. And I saw the hand that killed him-"

"Hand!" screamed Michela.

"Hush, Michela." Tryon Welles was speaking. "What do you mean, Mars?"

"They ain't nothin' to tell except that, Mista Tryon. I was just comin' to dust the library and there was just a hand stickin' out of them velvet curtains. And I saw the hand and I saw the revolver and I-don't know what I did then." Mars wiped his forehead. "I guess I ran for help, Mista Tryon."

There was another silence.

"Whose hand was it, Mars?" said Tryon Welles gently.

Mars blinked and looked very old.

"Mista Tryon, God's truth is, I do' know. I do' know."

Randy thrust himself forward.

"Was it a man's hand?"

"I reckon it was, maybe," said the old Negro slowly, looking at the floor. "But I do' know for sure, Mista Randy. All I saw was-was the red ring on it."

"A red ring?" cried Michela. "What do you mean-"

Mars turned a bleak dark face toward Michela; a face that rejected her and all she had done to his house. "A red ring, Miz Bromfel," he said with a kind of dignity. "It sort of flashed. And it was red."

After a moment Randy uttered a curious laugh.

"But there's not a red ring in the house. None of us runs to rubies-" He stopped abruptly. "I say, Tryon, hadn't we better-well, carry him to the divan. It isn't decent to-just leave him-like that."

"I suppose so." Tryon Welles moved toward the body. "Help me, Randy-"

The boy shivered, and Anna quite suddenly found her voice.

"Oh, but you can't do that. You can't-" She stopped. The two men were looking at her in astonishment. Michela, too, had turned toward her, although Christabel did not move. "But you can't do that," repeated Anna. "Not when it's murder."

This time the word, falling into the long room, was weighted with its own significance. Tryon Welles' gray shoulders moved.

"She's perfectly right," he said. "I'd forgotten-if I ever knew. But that's the way of it. We'll have to send for people-doctor, sheriff, coroner, I suppose."

Afterward, Anna realized that but for Tryon Welles the confusion would have become mad. He took quiet command of the situation, sending Randy, white and sick-looking, to dress, telephone into town, seeing that the body was decently covered, and even telling Mars to bring them hot coffee. He was here, there, everywhere; upstairs, downstairs, seeing to them all, and finally outside to meet the sheriff ... brisk, alert, efficient. In the interval, Anna sat numbly beside Christabel on the love seat in the hall, with Michela restlessly prowling up and down the hall before their eyes. Her red-and-white sports suit, with its scarlet bracelets and earrings, looked garish and out of place in that house of violent death.

And Christabel. Still a frozen image of a woman who drank coffee automatically, she sat erect and still did not speak. The glowing amethyst on her finger caught the light and was the only living thing about her.

Gradually the sense of numb shock and confusion was leaving Anna. Fright was still there and horror and a queer aching pity, but she saw Randy come running down the wide stairway again, his red hair smooth now above the sweater, and she realized clearly that he was no longer white and sick and frightened; he was instead alert and defiantly ready for what might come. And it would be, thought Anna, in all probability, plenty. And it was.

Questions-questions. The doctor, who was kind, the coroner, who was not, the sheriff, who was merely observant-all of them questioning without end. No time to think. No time to comprehend. Time only to reply as best one might.

But gradually out of it all, certain salient facts began to emerge. They were few, however, and brief.

The revolver was Randy's, and it had been taken from the top buffet drawer-when, no one knew or, at least, would tell. "Everybody knew it was there," said Randy sulkily. The fingerprints on it would probably prove to be Randy's and Mars', since they picked it up.

No one knew anything of the murder, and no one had an alibi, except Liz (the Negro second girl) and Minnie (the cook), who were together in the kitchen.

Christabel had been writing letters in her own room; she'd heard the shot, but thought it was only Randy shooting a bullfrog in the pool. But then she'd heard Randy and Mars running down the front stairway, so she'd come down too. Just to be sure that that was what it was.

"What else did you think it could be?" asked the sheriff. But Christabel said stiffly that she didn't know.

Randy had been asleep when Mars had awakened him. He had not heard the sound of the shot at all. He and Mars had hurried down to the library. (Mars, it developed, had gone upstairs by means of the small back stairway off the kitchen.)

Tryon Welles had walked down the hill in front of the house to the mail box and was returning when he heard the shot. But it was muffled, and he did not know what had happened until he reached the library. He created a mild sensation at that point by taking off a ring, holding it so they could see it, and demanding of Mars if that was the ring he had seen on the murderer's hand. However, the sensation was only momentary, for the large clear stone was as green as his neat green tie.

"No, suh, Mista Tryon," said Mars. "The ring on the hand I saw was red. I could see it plain, and it was red."

"This," said Tryon Welles, "is a flawed emerald. I asked because I seem to be about the only person here wearing a ring. But I suppose that, in justice to us, all our belongings should be searched."

Upon which the sheriff's gaze slid to the purple pool on Christabel's white hand He said, gently, that that was being done, and would Mrs. Michela Bromfel tell what she knew of the murder.

But Mrs. Michela Bromfel somewhat spiritedly knew nothing of it. She'd been walking in the pine woods, she said defiantly, glancing obliquely at Randy, who suddenly flushed all over his thin face. She'd heard the shot but hadn't realized it was a gunshot. However, she was curious and came back to the house.

"The window behind the body opens toward the pine woods," said the sheriff. "Did you see anyone, Mrs. Bromfel?"

"No one at all," said Michela definitely.

Well, then, had she heard the dogs barking? The sheriff seemed to know that the kennels were just back of the pine woods.

But Michela had not heard the dogs.

Someone stirred restively at that, and the sheriff coughed and said unnecessarily that there was no tramp about, then, and the questioning continued. Continued wearily on and on and on, and still no one knew how Joe Bromfel had met his death. And as the sheriff was at last dismissing them and talking to the coroner of an inquest, one of his men came to report on the search. No one was in the house who didn't belong there; they could tell nothing of footprints; the french windows back of the body had been ajar, and there was no red ring anywhere in the house.

"Not, that is, that we can find," said the man.

"All right," said the sheriff. "That'll be all now, folks. But I'd take it kindly if you was to stay around here today."

All her life Anna was to remember that still, long day with a kind of sharp reality. It was, after those first moments when she'd felt so ill and shocked, weirdly natural, was if one event having occurred, another was bound to follow, and then another, and all of them quite in the logical order of things. Even the incident of the afternoon, so trivial in itself but later so significant, was as natural, as unsurprising as anything could be. And that was her meeting with Jim Del Mar.

It happened at the end of the afternoon, long and painful, which Anna spent with Christabel, knowing somehow that, under her frozen surface, Christabel was grateful for Anna's presence. But there were nameless things in the air between them which could be neither spoken nor ignored, and Anna was relieved when Christabel at last took a sedative and, eventually, fell into a sleep that was no more still than Christabel waking had been.

There was no one to be seen when Anna tiptoed out of Christabel's room and down the stairway, although she heard voices from the closed door of the library.

Out of the wide door at last and walking along the terrace above the lily pool, Anna took a long breath of the mist-laden air.

So this was murder. This was murder, and it happened to people one knew, and it did indescribable and horrible things to them. Frightened them first, perhaps. Fear of murder itself came first-simple, primitive fear of the unleashing of the beast. And then on its heels came more civilized fear, and that was fear of the law, and a scramble for safety.

She turned at the hedge and glanced backward. The house lay white and stately amid its gardens as it had lain for generations. But it was no longer tranquil-it was charged now with violence. With murder. And it remained dignified and stately and would cling, as Christabel would cling and had clung all those years, to its protective ritual.

Christabel: had she killed him? Was that why she was so stricken and gray? Or was it because she knew that Randy had killed him? Or was it something else?

Anna did not see the man till she was almost upon him, and then she cried out involuntarily, though as a rule she was not at all nervous. He was sitting on the small porch of the cottage, hunched up with his hat over his eyes and his coat collar turned up, furiously scribbling on a pad of paper. He jumped up as he heard her breathless little cry, whirled to face her and took his hat off, all in one motion.

"May I use your typewriter?" he said.

His eyes were extremely clear and blue and lively. His face was agreeably irregular in feature, with a mouth that laughed a great deal, a chin that took insolence from no man, and a generous width of forehead. His fair hair was thinning but not yet showing gray and his hands were unexpectedly fine and beautiful. Hard on the surface, thought Anna. Terribly sensitive, really, Irish. What's he doing here?

Aloud she said: "Yes."

"Good. Can't write fast enough and want to get this story off tonight. I've been waiting for you, you know. They told me you wrote things. My name's Del Mar. James Del Mar. I'm a reporter. Cover special stories. I'm taking a busman's holiday. I'm actually on a Chicago paper and down here for a vacation. I didn't expect a murder story to break."

Anna opened the door upon the small living room.

"The typewriter's there. Do you need paper? There's a stack beside it."

He fell upon the typewriter absorbedly, like a dog on a bone. She watched him for a while, amazed at his speed and fluency and utter lack of hesitancy.

Presently she lighted the fire already laid in the tiny fireplace and sat there quietly, letting herself be soothed by the glow of the flames and the steady rhythm of the typewriter keys. And for the first time that day its experiences, noted and stored away in whatever place observations are stored, began to arouse and assort and arrange themselves and march in some sort of order through her conscious thoughts. But it was a dark and macabre procession, and it frightened Anna. She was relieved when Jim Del Mar spoke.

"I say," he said suddenly, over the clicking keys, "I've got your name Louise Simms. Is that Right?"

"Anna."

He looked at her. The clicking stopped.

"Anna. Anna Simms," he repeated thoughtfully. "I say, you can't be the Anna Simms that writes murder stories!"

"Yes," said Anna guardedly, "I can be that Anna Simms."

There was an expression of definite incredulity in his face. "But you-"

"If you say," observed Anna tensely, "that I don't look as if I wrote murder stories, you can't use my typewriter for your story."

"I suppose you are all tangled up in this mess," he said speculatively.

"Yes," said Anna, sober again. "And no," she added, looking at the fire.

"Don't commit yourself," said Jim Del Mar dryly. "Don't say anything reckless."

"But I mean just that," said Anna. "I'm a guest here. A friend of Christabel Frame's. I didn't murder Joe Bromfel. And I don't care at all about the rest of the people here except that I wish I'd never seen them."

"But you do," said the reporter gently, "care a lot about Christabel Frame?"

"Yes," said Anna gravely.

"I've got all the dope, you know," said the reporter softly. "It wasn't hard to get. Everybody around here knows about the Frames. The thing I can't understand is why she shot Joe. It ought to have been Michela."

"What-" Anna's fingers were digging into the wicker arms of her chair, and her eyes strove frantically to plumb the clear blue eyes above the typewriter.

"I said it ought to have been Michela. She's the girl who's making the trouble."

"But it wasn't-it couldn't-Christabel wouldn't-"

"Oh, yes, she could," said the reporter rather wearily. "All sorts of people could do the strangest things. Christabel could murder. But I can't see why she'd murder Joe and let Michela go scot-free."

"Michela," said Anna in a low voice, "would have a motive."

"Yes, she's got a motive. Get rid of a husband. But so had Randy Frame. Same one. And he's what the people around here call a Red Frame-impulsive, reckless, bred to a tradition of-violence."

"But Randy was asleep-upstairs-"

He interrupted her.

"Oh, yes, I know all that. And you were approaching the house from the terrace, and Tryon Welles had gone down after the mail, and Miss Christabel was writing letters upstairs, and Michela was walking in the pine woods. Not a damn alibi among you. The way the house and grounds are laid out, neither you nor Tryon Welles nor Michela would be visible to each other. And anyone could have escaped readily from the window and turned up innocently a moment later from the hall. I know all that. Who was behind the curtains?"

"A tramp-" attempted Anna in a small voice. "A burglar-"

"Burglar, nothing," said Jim Del Mar with scorn. "The dogs would have had hysterics. It was one of you. Who?"

"I don't know," said Anna. "I don't know!" Her voice was uneven, and she knew it and tried to steady it and clutched the chair arms tighter. Jim Del Mar knew it, too, and was suddenly alarmed.

"Oh, look here now," he cried. "Don't look like that. Don't cry. Don't-" He took her in his arms and she thought for a moment he was going to kiss her.

"I am not crying," said Anna. "But it wasn't Christabel."

"You mean," said the reporter kindly, "that you don't want it to be Christabel. Well-" He glanced at his watch. "Shit!" He flung his papers together and rose. "There's something I'll do. Not for you exactly-just for-oh, because. I'll let part of my story wait until tomorrow if you want the chance to try to prove your Christabel didn't murder him."

Anna was frowning perplexedly.

"You don't understand me," said the reporter cheerfully. "It's this. You write murder mysteries, and I've read one or two of them. They are not bad," he interpolated hastily, watching Anna. "Now, here's your chance to try a real murder mystery."

"But I don't want-" began Anna.

He checked her imperatively.

"You do want to," he said. "In fact, you've got to. You see-your Christabel is in a spot. You know that ring she wears-"

"When did you see it?"

"Oh, does it matter?" he cried impatiently. "Reporters see everything. The point is the ring."

"But it's an amethyst," said Anna defensively.

"Yes," he agreed grimly. "It's an amethyst. And Mars saw a red stone. He saw it, it has developed, on the right hand. And the hand holding the revolver. And Christabel wears her ring on her right hand."

"But," repeated Anna. "It's an amethyst."

"M-m-m," said the reporter. "It's amethyst. And a little while ago I said to Mars: 'What's the name of that flowering vine over there?' And he said: 'That red flower, suh? That's wisteria.' "

He paused. Anna felt exactly as if something had clutched her heart and squeezed it.

"The flowers were purple, of course," said the reporter softly. "The color of a dark amethyst."

"But he would have recognized Christabel's ring," said Anna after a moment.

"Maybe," said the reporter. "And maybe he wishes he'd never said a word about the red ring. He was scared when he first mentioned it, probably; hadn't had a chance to think it over."

"But Mars-Mars would confess to murdering rather than-"

"No," said Jim Del Mar soberly. "He wouldn't. That theory sounds all right. But it doesn't happen that way. People don't murder or confess to having murdered for somebody else. When it is a deliberate, planned murder and not a crazy drunken brawl, when anything can happen, there's a motive. And it's a strong and urgent and deeply personal and selfish motive and don't you forget it. I've got to hurry. Now then, shall I send in my story about the wisteria-"

"Don't," said Anna choking. "Oh, don't. Not yet."

He picked up his hat. "Thanks for the typewriter. Get your wits together and go to work. After all, you ought to know something of murders. I'll be seeing you."

The door closed, and the flames crackled.

After a long time Anna moved to the writing table and drew a sheet of yellow manuscript paper toward her, and a pencil, and wrote: Characters; possible motives; clues; queries.

It was strange, she thought, not how different real life was to its written imitation, but how like. How terribly like!

She was still bent over the yellow paper when a peremptory knock at the door sent her pencil jabbing furiously on the paper and her heart into her throat. It was only Michela Bromfel, and she wanted help.

"It's my knees," said Michela irritably. "Christabel's asleep or something, and the help in the kitchen are scared of their shadows." She paused to dig savagely at first one knee and then the other. "Have you got anything to put on my legs? I'm nearly going crazy. It's not mosquito bites. I don't know what it is. Look!"

She sat down, pulled back her white skirt and rolled down her thin stockings, disclosing just above each knee a scarlet blotchy rim.

Anna looked and had to resist a wild desire to giggle. "It's n-nothing," she said, quivering. "That is, it's only jiggers-here, I'll get something. Alcohol."

"Jiggers," said Michela blankly. "What's that?"

Anna went into the bathroom. "Little bugs," she called. Where was the alcohol? "They are thick in the pine woods. It'll be all right by morning." Here it was. She took the bottle in her hand and turned again through the bedroom into the tiny living room.

At the door she stopped abruptly. Michela was standing at the writing table. She looked up, saw Anna, and her flat dark eyes flickered.

"Oh," said Michela. "Writing a story?"

"No," said Anna. "It's not a story. Here's the alcohol."

Under Anna's straight look Michela had the grace to depart rather hastily, yanking up her stockings and twisting them hurriedly, and clutching at the bottle of alcohol. Her red bracelets clanked, and her scarlet fingernails looked as if they'd been dipped in blood. Of the few people who might have killed Joe Bromfel, Anna reflected coolly, she would prefer it to be Michela.

It was just then that a curious vagrant memory began to tease Anna. Rather it was not so much a memory as a memory of a memory-something that sometime she had known and now could not remember. It was tantalizing. It was maddeningly elusive. It floated teasingly on the very edge of her consciousness.

Deliberately, at last, Anna pushed it away and went back to work. Christabel and the amethyst. Christabel and the wisteria. Christabel.