I went back in the first room and started swinging the light around, looking for the stairway. I’d just spotted it, over against the rear wall, when I stopped dead still and cut the light. I held my breath, listening. I could hear my heart beating in the dead, oppressive silence, and the hair along the back of my neck was still prickling. The place was making me jumpy.
What I’d thought I heard was music.
Music at four o’clock in the morning in an empty house? Nuts. I listened for another full minute and then flicked the light on again. I went up the stairs. There was a door at the top of them. I opened it softly and went through. I was in the kitchen.
There was a window over the sink, but the curtains were drawn. That was something I had to check in all the rooms, so I could move around freely during the day. I examined the rest of the room. The door by the sink must be the one going out onto the back porch. The one on this side, beyond the stove, apparently led into the dining room and the front of the house. This left one more, besides the cellar door I’d just come through. It was at the end of the kitchen, and it was closed. I had to see in there. It should be the maid’s room.
I eased over to it, got my hand on the knob, and cut the light. I turned it slowly, very slowly, and pushed. It swung open into more of the same impenetrable darkness. I stood perfectly still, listening for the sound of breathing. It was the maid’s room, all right.
The room was full of her, but that didn’t mean she was here now. What I was smelling was the place she lived in. But I had to know, and know now, before it was daylight and too late to get out. I flicked the light on, pointed straight down, my nerves tightened up for the scream that would split the night. Or the gun blast that’ll blow my stupid head off, I thought, if she’s here and she’s got company. I was sweating. I eased the beam forward. It hit the end of a bed, climbed it. The bed was empty. I breathed again.
I closed the door and walked back through the kitchen. The drapes were drawn in the dining room. The table and sideboards were old, massive, and very dark. One of the sideboards was covered with an ornate old silver service that had probably cost somebody’s ancestor a young fortune.
I walked on into the living room and inspected it in the beam of light. No wonder Mrs. Butler’s a lush, I thought. Living in a mausoleum like this would make anybody take to the juice. It was an enormous room, furnished the same way the dining room was. The woodwork was all mahogany and walnut, and dark with age. The drapes, which were drawn, looked like wine-colored velvet, and the sofas and chairs were upholstered in maroon plush— the ones that weren’t black leather. One whole wall was covered with books.
I stopped the light suddenly, staring at the rows of books. I backed it up a little. Then I brought it ahead, very slowly, watching. It was odd. The volumes of the encyclopedia were all jumbled, in no order at all, and there were other books sandwiched in between them.
I began to have an odd hunch then. I threw the light around over the rest of the room again. Everything else seemed to be in order and in its place. I got down on my hands and knees beside one of the sofas and looked at the dents in the rug where the feet rested. It had been moved recently, all right. But that didn’t mean anything. The maid had probably done it, cleaning.
Picking up one end of the sofa, I swung it away from the wall and looked at the back of it. I saw it then. It was a long slash in the cloth, made by a sharp knife or razor blade. I began snatching up the cushions. They were all slashed on the undersides. So were the ones in the chairs.
For an instant I wanted to throw the flashlight through the window. Then I settled down a little, and squatted on my heels to light a cigarette. Who was it? No, the question was: Had he found what he was looking for? There was a chance he hadn’t.
But, if not, why wasn’t he still here, looking for it? That was the one you couldn’t get around.
Was there a chance it was just the search the police had given the place, two months ago? No. They wouldn’t have cut things up that way. And Mrs. Butler or the maid would have put the books back in some sort of order by this time. This had been done recently.
But there was one thing about it. The fact that somebody else had been searching the place proved we were right. Apparently we weren’t the only ones who had reason to believe Mrs. Butler had killed her husband before he could get away.
And I was here, wasn’t I? And I was going to be here until Friday morning. What did I want to do— quit before I’d even got started? What the hell. Go ahead and search the place. That was what I’d come for. Maybe the other people hadn’t found it. I located an ashtray and crushed out the cigarette. The thought of the money was making me itchy again.
I went out through an archway at the end of the living room. There was a short hall here, or entry, with the front door at one end and the stairs at the other. I started up the stairs.
The steps were carpeted, but halfway up one pf them creaked under my weight. I stopped, cursing silently; then I shook off the jumpiness. What was I worried about? I had the whole place to myself, didn’t I? The maid was gone.
I reached the top. I started to turn, sweeping the flashlight beam ahead of me. Then I froze dead and snapped it off, staring down the hallway. A door was open on one side of it, and I could see a very faint glow of light spilling out into the hall. I put my other foot down silently and eased the awkward position I was in. I wanted to turn and run, but something about the light fascinated me. I remained motionless, hardly breathing.
It was too dim to be an electric light of any kind, and it seemed to flicker. Was it a match? Maybe whoever it was was setting fire to the place. But no, it didn’t seem to grow, as a fire would. I waited. It remained the same. Then I knew what it was. It was a candle.
That didn’t make any sense. Who’d be wandering around with a candle, with flashlights selling for forty-nine cents? But before I could even start to think about it, I became conscious of something new. It was a sound. It was a faint hissing noise, coming from the room.
Then, at almost the same time I guessed what it was, the music started. It had been the needle riding in the groove, of a phonograph record. The music was turned down very low, and it was something long-hair I didn’t recognize.
I knew I should run, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. I had to look in there. It was only three or four steps down the hall. There was a carpet to muffle the sound of my steps.
I stopped just short of the door. This was the dangerous part of it. Whoever was in there would be able to see me when I looked in if he happened to be facing the door. The music went on very softly, but there was no other sound. I put my face against the doorframe and peered around it.
It was a strange sight. At first there was an odd feeling about it, as if I had wandered into some kind of religious ceremony. Then I began to get it sorted out. It was a bedroom. The candle was burning on the floor in a little silver dish, and beside it was the record player. Phonograph records were scattered around on the rug, and in the middle of them, alongside a low couch, a girl in a long blue robe sat on the floor and swayed gently back and forth as she listened to the music.
I saw her in profile with the candlelight softly touching her face and the cloud of dark hair that swirled about it. She was almost unbelievably beautiful, and she was drunk as a lord.
I remained very still outside the door, thinking coldly of Diana James. Mrs. Butler was like hell in Sanport.
Chapter Four
Had she thrown that curve deliberately, or had it just been a mix-up? She’d lied right at the beginning, because she didn’t want to tell me any more about the thing than she had to. Maybe she’d lied again.