Floraine smiled and said, “You’re very tired. I’m sure you’ll see things differently after you’ve had a good rest.”
She spoke very convincingly, and for an instant Isobel felt that she must have imagined the whole thing. Then her eyes fell on the can of ski wax.
“What about the ski wax?” she said.
“Where did you get that?”
“In the cellar.”
“Your prying is very thorough,” Floraine said stiffly. “The wax belongs to Harry. He left it here some time ago. I put the can in the cellar yesterday morning because Frances thought it was something to eat. She ate some of it so I hid it from her.”
She can explain anything, Isobel thought desperately.
Floraine said from the doorway, “Is there anything else I can relieve your mind about?”
Isobel looked up and met the impassive black eyes. “No,” she said wearily. “No, thank you.”
“Well, good night.” She went into the hall again. Miss Rudd had come out of her room and was waiting for her.
“I thought I told you to stay in your room, Frances.”
“Oh, I can’t sleep with Harry in the house! You tell him to go, Floraine. You tell him he can’t steal any more of my...”
“Go into your room,” Floraine said harshly. “I’m going to lock you in.”
“No! Oh, no! Oh, don’t lock me in!” The voice faded, and there was the bang of a door and the clicking of a lock.
Sometime later Gracie came back and crawled into bed, still wearing Mrs. Vista’s fur mittens on her feet. Isobel was too depressed to move. She sat in a chair beside the windows, huddled inside her coat.
I don’t believe a word Floraine said, she thought, except what Miss Rudd confirmed, that there is someone called Harry and that he looks something like Charles Crawford.
She took a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket and lit one. The radiator began to bang again and she thought of Etienne in the cellar burning...
She got up and tossed the cigarette away and stepped on it. I’ve got to talk to somebody, she thought. I can’t sit here and think about that damn cat and the bus driver.
She flung her coat over her shoulders again, reassured herself that Gracie was sleeping, and picked up the lamp.
In the hall she stopped a minute before Miss Rudd’s door and tried the knob. Floraine had kept her word and Miss Rudd was locked in for the night and the light was out. She stood, listening to know if Miss Rudd had gone to sleep. Then she heard a faint muffled whispering from the room and bent her ear to the keyhole.
But it was not Miss Rudd talking there in the dark room. Even when she whispered, Floraine could not conceal the nasal accent that identified her.
“... be all right. Don’t lose your nerve. She’ll be gone in the morning.”
There was a faint murmur in reply.
“She can’t do a thing,” Floraine said. “Nobody can do a thing to spoil it.”
The murmur again, obviously protesting. Then a movement of feet inside the room.
Isobel walked away on tiptoe and made for Mr. Crawford’s room. She had her hand up ready to knock when Joyce appeared beside her, materializing out of the darkness.
“What are you doing?” Joyce said in a low voice. “You’d better go back to your room. You don’t want to stir up trouble.”
Isobel said, “I can’t stay in that room. I want somebody to talk to.”
“You heard what Floraine said about Miss Rudd,” Joyce hissed. “Do you want us all to be murdered?”
“I can’t...”
“Don’t be a baby! And don’t—” Joyce narrowed her eyes — “don’t rely on Mr. Crawford.” She turned on her heel and went back to her room. Isobel noticed that she had taken off her shoes and moved silently as a cat.
What a queer girl, Isobel thought. But there had been something very convincing in her voice and Isobel went reluctantly back to her room.
She put a chair underneath the doorknob, and taking off her coat, she lay down beside Gracie. Her head ached and her cheeks burned from the wind and whenever she closed her eyes images dangled in her mind. The cat bleeding on the blanket. Miss Rudd holding the cheek Floraine had slapped. The cat again, wrapped in the grey blanket and tucked under Floraine’s arm.
“She’ll be gone in the morning,” Floraine had said. Who was “she”? What could she do to spoil anything for Floraine and the person with the murmur?
She couldn’t have meant me, Isobel thought. I can’t do anything except ask questions.
But perhaps that was what she meant. Perhaps she was really disturbed by one of the questions, if not all of them.
Gracie gave a little snore and turned on her other side, dragging the blanket with her. Isobel tugged at the blanket until she regained half of it and settled down again to think. But the images kept coming too fast and gradually they distorted beyond recognition and Isobel slept.
In a room across the hall, Mrs. Vista lay on the bed, a mountain of blankets twitching like an incipient volcano. She occupied exactly two-thirds of the bed — she had measured the amount scrupulously — but even this did not seem to be enough now that she had had a short nap.
She flapped around for a while like a walrus on ice, then she sat straight up and looked over at Paula Lashley to see if she was sleeping.
Paula’s eyes were closed and she lay very quietly.
“Are you sleeping?” said Mrs. Vista loudly.
No answer.
Ah, youth, youth, thought Mrs. Vista with sadness. No nerves, no indigestion, not even any feelings, when you come to think of it.
“At any rate, I have lived, Mrs. Vista murmured, and thought of Cecil, the supplier of her name and fortune, and purveyor of virility.
Mrs. Vista, then Evaline Smith of Cincinnati, had gone to Europe on an organized tour. She didn’t return for fifteen years and then she had defied tradition by not creeping back like a wounded animal but arriving by Clipper swaddled in mink, diamonds and smiles. She threw herself into culture. At a meeting of her Poetry Club she met Mr. Anthony Goodwin and because he was English and alone and defenseless among Americans who misunderstood him and printed shocking lies about him in the papers, Mrs. Vista took him up. Cecil had, unaccountably, heard of this new interest, for he sent her a friendly cable telling her to watch her step or he’d send the King’s Proctor after her and how was she, anyway?
No one else but Cecil would do a thing like that, Mrs. Vista thought with nostalgia. She flipped over again on her side. Paula made a funny little noise which sounded like a sob.
“Why, you aren’t sleeping!” Mrs. Vista said with great reproach.
“I am so!” Paula whispered savagely. “Leave me alone.”
Mrs. Vista usually acted inversely to the wishes of other people. She raised herself on one elbow and squinted over at Paula. The tears were rolling down Paula’s cheeks.
“Well, really!” said Mrs. Vista. “What are you crying about?”
“N-nothing.”
“Nerves?” Mrs. Vista diagnosed. “I’m a great sufferer from nerves myself.”
“It’s not nerves,” Paula said into her pillow. “I just want to go home.”
Mrs. Vista sighed, “So do we all. A few more hours yet and we’ll be on our way.”
“I don’t want to go to the Lodge. I want to go home.”
“What did you come for, in the first place?”
Paula rolled her head back and forth and sobbed into the pillow.
Mrs. Vista sighed and thought, she looked so quiet and thin. What a mistake! I should have taken a room to myself but this house seemed so eerie.
“I think you should go down to the bathroom and wash your face and stop this nonsense,” she said firmly. “There’s nothing like a dash of cold water...”