“Stables?” murmured Amy as the car halted.
“I keep a cow and a saddle horse. Curtis sold me the idea I should have a horse for exercise. Sold me the horse, too, for that matter. I ride on the beach mornings before I go to the hospital.”
“What sort of staff do you have here?”
“One of the local nurses comes during office hours to keep records straight and help with patients. Then I have a housekeeper, Mrs. Adams. Nice old soul. It’s she who’s responsible for the Siamese cat. Got him a week ago.”
“And the man from Alabama who talks like a Negro?”
“Sharpe. He comes in twice a day to look after the grounds and the stables. He’s a gardener, really, employed by a landscaping company to mow lawns and trim hedges on the big places around here. But he likes to make extra money, so he comes to me when he’s off duty.”
“And that’s the terrace and the picture window.” Amy was looking at the new wing.
Allan opened the front door without a key.
“Don’t you ever lock it?”
“In Oldport? Of course not!”
Allan led the way through a door on the left and pressed a light switch. The waiting-room was big, at least 30 feet wide, obviously new, aseptically impersonal. There were no rugs. The floor was some synthetic composite, a mottled gray that looked like marble and rang like stone under Amy’s heels.
“Allan! This must be the place.” Her glance came to rest on a desk with a telephone.
“That’s where the nurse sits. There are two other extensions, in my office and in my bedroom.”
“Wouldn’t the nurse be here at 5 o’clock? That’s the time I telephoned.”
“She leaves a few minutes earlier if there are no patients in the waiting-room and I am out on house visits, as I was today.”
“Then it’s no use asking your housekeeper whether Esther was here today or not. This room could have been empty when the telephone rang about 5 o’clock. The stableman, Sharpe, might have heard it, passing a window. He might have stepped inside to answer it, knowing you and the nurse had gone, not knowing whether the housekeeper heard it or not. Only, when I asked for Mrs. Corbett, why did he say she might be down at the stables?”
“Because she might.” Allan’s voice was sober, plainly worried. He looked heavier, more settled and weary than Amy remembered him. “Your mother and Peter have been here a lot this summer.”
“So Sharpe puts the telephone down on the desk, leaving the line connected, and walks out to the stables,” mused Amy. “That walk would take several minutes. While he’s gone, two other people come into the waiting-room — a man and a woman. They walk in unannounced because the front door is unlocked. If they are discovered they can always claim they came as patients.”
“But why come here at all?” demanded Allan.
Amy smiled. “Remember what the woman said: ‘Where’s the Nembutal?’ ”
“Holy Moses! I’ll check that at once.” Allan hurried through the door to his office. Amy followed, and found him standing before a wall cupboard.
“Do you always leave the key in the lock like that?”
“No. I carry one key and keep a spare in the desk drawer.”
“Where any patient might have seen it?”
He nodded. “That’s the spare.” He took a bottle of capsules out of the cupboard. The face he turned to Amy now was haggard. “There seem to be about a dozen capsules missing. I swear I can’t remember whether I took them out myself to put in my bag or not.”
“Now, do you believe my story?”
“I suppose I must.” He locked the cupboard. “Even so, I’m not sure you have enough evidence to go to the police. I can report the missing Nembutal, but that conversation you overheard is still a flimsy basis for accusing a woman like Esther Gregory. And you have no idea who the man was.”
“Perhaps we can find out now.” Amy’s eyes shone. “Allan, haven’t you wondered about afterward?”
“After what?”
“After that telephone connection was cut. The man, Sharpe, must have come back from the stables to tell me that Mrs. Corbett wasn’t there. Did he find Esther and the man still here or see them leave the house?”
Allan frowned. “Are you sure it was your sudden start that cut the telephone conversation? Isn’t it possible that the people you overheard discovered the open telephone line at that moment? In that case, one of them would cut the connection and they’d both get away as fast as they could, before anyone saw them. They couldn’t know that the listener at the other end of the line thought she had a wrong number. They would think she knew she was listening to a conversation in my house. So they couldn’t afford to be seen here at that particular time.”
“Even then they may not have got away fast enough. Sharpe may have seen them.” Amy turned toward the door. “Is he down at the stable now? There was a light there when we came in.”
After the aseptic, fluorescent glitter of office and waiting-room, it was hard to see, outside. Amy stumbled as they crossed the uneven turf.
Allan opened the stable door. “Sharpe?”
There was a thud of iron-shod hoofs on wood. Allan opened a door on the right and pressed a wall switch. The light of a naked bulb showed a concrete floor and a box stall of unfinished wood. A horse’s head lifted across the barrier — dark chestnut with a black mane. Amy saw the white rim that circled rolling eyeballs.
“Quiet there, old girl. What’s the matter?” Surprise edged Allan’s voice. “Usually Stormbird... Great heavens!”
Allan was looking intently into the mare’s box. She moved, and her shadow shifted with her, so that light fell on the farther wall. Now Amy could see the crumpled body of a man in overalls and the horseshoe curve of the wound that had crushed his skull, dark with blood against a bloodless face.
“Sharpe!” Allan whispered incredulously. “But Stormbird wouldn’t... I’ve been in that stall with her often.”
Amy turned away, fighting nausea. “It wasn’t Stormbird.” She closed her eyes, leaning her head against the wall. “Now we know what happened... afterward. And we can’t prove a thing.”
Never again would Amy enjoy the pungent smell of horse and hay and leather. She opened her eyes and walked numbly into the yard outside.
“Allan!”
“Yes?” He was at her elbow.
“I have to tell the police about that conversation now.”
“You’re not suggesting that Esther killed Sharpe?”
“Of course not. But the man who was with her did. Sharpe was the only person who knew that a Miss Corbett had called your number and been left listening to an open line that led to your waiting-room. Sharpe was the only person who could have seen the couple who came into that room while the line was still open without noticing it. Don’t you see? They were still there when he got back and he told them who had called. They realized instantly that, once I talked to Sharpe, he would identify them for me. And I was certain to talk to Sharpe as soon as I identified your waiting-room as the place where they had talked. Together, Sharpe and I were a menace. I could testify to the couple’s conversation. Sharpe could identify the couple. So the man killed Sharpe to save Esther and himself.”
“Would any man murder to escape a charge of attempted murder? That is the only accusation you and Sharpe could make!”
“Suppose they want to carry out their original plan of murdering Curtis and making it look like an accident? There must be some overwhelming motive for that or they would never have planned it in the first place! If I charge Esther now, or later, and she denies the whole thing, it’s just my word against hers. Without Sharpe’s corroboration, I have nothing but my belief that I identified the woman’s voice as Esther’s. Allan, what should I do?”