A large ash dropped to the floor, and I ground it carefully into the rug with my foot. I said, “You were at the inquest, Charlie; you saw what happened. Celia’s cleared, and unless additional evidence can be produced, she stays cleared.”
“Evidence! My God, what more evidence does anyone need! They were arguing hammer and tongs at the top of the stairs. Celia just grabbed Jessie and threw her down to the bottom and killed her. That’s murder, isn’t it? Just the same as if she used a gun or poison or whatever she would have used if the stairs weren’t handy?”
I sat down wearily in the old leatherbound armchair there, and studied the new ash that was forming on my cigar. “Let me show it to you from the legal angle,” I said, and the monotone of my voice must have made it sound like a well memorized formula. “First, there were no witnesses.”
“I heard Jessie scream and I heard her fall,” he said doggedly, “and when I ran out and found her there, I heard Celia slam her door shut right then. She pushed Jessie and then scuttered like a rat to be out of the way.”
“But you didn’t see anything. And since Celia claims that she wasn’t on the scene, there were no witnesses. In other words, Celia’s story cancels out your story, and since you weren’t an eye witness you can’t very well make a murder out of what might have been an accident.”
He slowly shook his head.
“You don’t believe that,” he said. “You don’t really believe that. Because if you do, you can get out now and never come near me again.”
“It doesn’t matter what I believe; I’m showing you the legal aspects of the case. What about motivation? What did Celia have to gain from Jessie’s death? Certainly there’s no money or property involved; she’s as financially independent as you are.” Charlie sat down on the edge of his bed and leaned toward me with his hands resting on his knees. “No,” he whispered, “there’s no money or property in it.”
I spread my arms helplessly. “You see?”
“But you know what it is,” he said; “it’s me. First, it was the old lady with her heart trouble any time I tried to call my soul my own. Then when she died and I thought I was free, it was Celia. From the time I got up in the morning until I went to bed at night, it was Celia every step of the way. She never had a husband or a baby — but she had me!”
I said quietly, “She’s your sister, Charlie. She loves you,” and he laughed that unpleasant, short laugh.
“She loves me like ivy loves a tree. When I think back now, I still can’t see how she did it, but she would just look at me a certain way and all the strength would go out of me. And it was like that until I met Jessie... I remember the day I brought Jessie home, and told Celia we were married. She swallowed it, but that look was in her eyes the same as it must have been when she pushed Jessie down those stairs.”
I said, “But you admitted at the inquest that you never saw her threaten Jessie or do anything to hurt her.”
“Of course I never saw! But when Jessie would go around sick to her heart every day and not say a word, or cry in bed every night and not tell me why, I knew damn well what was going on. You know what Jessie was like. She wasn’t so smart or pretty, but she was good-hearted as the day was long, and she was crazy about me. And when she started losing all that sparkle in her after only a month, I knew why. I talked to her and I talked to Celia, and both of them just shook their heads. All I could do was go around in circles, but when it happened, when I saw Jessie lying there, it didn’t surprise me. Maybe that sounds queer, but it didn’t surprise me at all.”
“I don’t think it surprised anyone who knows Celia,” I said, “but you can’t make a case out of that.”
He beat his fist against his knee and rocked from side to side. “What can I do?” he said. “That’s what I need you for — to tell me what to do. All my life I never got around to doing anything because of her. That’s what she’s banking on now — that I won’t do anything, and that she’ll get away with it. Then after a while, things’ll settle down, and we’ll be right back where we started from.”
I said, “Charlie, you’re getting yourself all worked up to no end.”
He stood up and stared at the door, and then at me. “But I can do something,” he whispered. “Do you know what?”
He waited with the bright expectancy of one who has asked a clever riddle that he knows will stump the listener. I stood up facing him, and shook my head slowly. “No,” I said; “whatever you’re thinking, put it out of your mind.”
“Don’t mix me up,” he said. “You know you can get away with murder if you’re as smart as Celia. Don’t you think I’m as smart as Celia?”
I caught his shoulders tightly. “For God’s sake, Charlie,” I said, “don’t start talking like that.”
He pulled out of my hands and went staggering back against the wall. His eyes were bright, and his teeth showed behind his drawn lips. “What should I do?” he cried. “Forget everything now that Jessie is dead and buried? Sit here until Celia gets tired of being afraid of me and kills me too?”
My years and girth had betrayed me in that little tussle with him, and I found myself short of dignity and breath. “I’ll tell you one thing,” I said. “You haven’t been out of this house since the inquest It’s about time you got out, if only to walk the streets and look around you.”
“And have everybody laugh at me as I go!”
“Try it,” I said, “and see. Al Sharp said that some of your friends would be at his bar and grill tonight, and he’d like to see you there. That’s my advice — for whatever it’s worth.”
“It’s not worth anything,” said Celia. The door had been opened, and she stood there rigid, her eyes narrowed against the light in the room. Charlie turned toward her, his jaw muscles knotting and unknotting.
“Celia,” he said, “I told you never to come into this room!”
Her face remained impassive. “I’m not in it. I came to tell you that your dinner is ready.”
He took a menacing step toward her. “Did you have your ear at that door long enough to hear everything I said? Or should I repeat it for you?”
“I heard an ungodly and filthy thing,” she said quietly; “an invitation to drink and roister while this house is in mourning. I think I have every right to object to that.”
He looked at her incredulously and had to struggle for words. “Celia,” he said, “tell me you don’t mean that! Only the blackest hypocrite alive or someone insane could say what you’ve just said, and mean it.”
That struck a spark in her. “Insane!” she cried. “You dare use that word? Locked in your room, talking to yourself, thinking heaven knows what!” She turned to me suddenly. “You’ve talked to him. You ought to know. Is it possible that—”
“He is as sane as you, Celia,” I said heavily.
“Then he should know that one doesn’t drink in saloons at a time like this. How could you ask him to do it?”
She flung the question at me with such an air of malicious triumph that I completely forgot myself. “If you weren’t preparing to throw out Jessie’s belongings, Celia, I would take that question seriously!”
It was a reckless thing to say, and I had instant cause to regret it. Before I could move, Charlie was past me and had Celia’s arms pinned in a paralyzing grip.
“Did you dare go into her room?” he raged, shaking her savagely. “Tell me!” and then, getting an immediate answer from the panic in her face, he dropped her arms as if they were red hot, and stood there sagging with his head bowed.
Celia reached out a placating hand toward him. “Charlie,” she whimpered, “don’t you see? Having her things around bothers you. I only wanted to help you.”