“She was crazy,” Isobel said. “Go on. Miss Rudd is perfectly sane, of course.”
“No, I wouldn’t say that,” Gracie said cautiously. “But she’s not as crazy as Floraine was. You see, I got to thinking about my aunt again. Then I thought about my uncle, my aunt’s husband. And anyway, it turned out that he was crazy just from being around her. So I think that’s what happened to Floraine. She felt herself slipping and decided to end it all.”
Gracie got up and brushed off her skirt. “Do you think we ought to go and tell the others now? They”ll feel better.”
“I don’t think they will,” Isobel said sadly. “I think they”ll feel much, much worse. You keep it to yourself, Gracie.”
“Sure, if you really think I ought to.”
“You ought to,” Isobel said.
“I’m certainly glad I figured it out. We can let Miss Rudd do as she likes. Imagine — for a minute there I was scared of her, seeing that foot sticking out of the snow. Boy, was I nuts!”
“Boy,” Isobel said, “are you nuts.”
She turned away and began walking, not too steadily, towards the sitting room.
Gracie called after her. “Say, are you having lunch already?”
“No, I’m taking this food to a man. I found a man.”
“That’s swell,” Gracie said enthusiastically. “I knew you could do it, even at your age. Which one is it?”
12
When she returned to the sitting room Isobel found Dubois sitting where she’d left him, but there was a studied casualness in the way he sat that made Isobel believe he had been up and around examining the house. Under the circumstances he was far too self-assured, cross-country skier or not.
He had taken off his hat and Isobel saw that his hair was clipped very short and was black and curly.
He rubbed the stubble on his chin and smiled at Isobel. “You are welcome, Miss Seton.”
“I’m sorry there’s not much variety here, but I can’t cook.”
“Can’t you?” he said, still smiling, but his eyes were watchful.
She put the dishes on the floor beside him and said, “You remind me of someone.”
He waved a piece of bread gaily. “I am constantly reminding someone of someone. I fear I am a type. Perhaps that is why Mr. Crawford dislikes me.”
“Mr. Crawford doesn’t need an excuse to dislike anyone,” Isobel said. “He has a creative impulse for trouble.”
He continued to eat, hungrily, but delicately, picking the crumbs from his lap and tossing them into the fire. From one corner of the room a radiator began to clatter and bang. Dubois’ hand poised rigidly in mid-air for a moment, then went on with the crumb gathering.
It made Isobel nervous and she started to fidget. He stopped immediately and looked up at her.
“I see you have been under a strain,” he said with sympathy.
“Yes.”
“You are from the city?”
“New York.”
“You have come a long way, not in actual miles, but in other things. French Canada is no doubt strange to you?”
“If what’s happened to me is a sample,” Isobel said grimly, “French Canada is a very strange country.”
“Your experiences have been unusual?”
“Terrific is the word.”
“Oh?” He nodded wisely, waiting for her to continue.
“I get on a bus and the bus driver walks off into a blizzard. Exit permanent. I get out of the bus and am shot at. I go into a house and find an insane woman and a sinister nurse. Exit the nurse. Very permanent.”
“Ah yes, the body. Mr. Crawford took it into the other room?”
“The library,” Isobel said. She frowned suddenly, and thought, why the library? He knew I wanted to go in there. Is he trying to keep me out?
Dubois said, “You distrust Mr. Crawford?”
“I don’t feel one way or the other about him,” Isobel said. “I have no reason to trust any of these people. I have never seen them before, except a picture of Mr. Goodwin in a newspaper once.”
Picture in a newspaper. There was something queer about the phrase which gnawed at her mind. There was something about a picture in a newspaper...
Dubois was talking again and she turned her attention back to him.
“... any reason to suspect that the nurse was murdered? May it not have been an accident of some kind?”
“I don’t know. There were no marks on her. She apparently fell or was pushed over the second-story balcony.”
Dubois leaned forward. “But surely a fall in soft snow wouldn’t kill her?”
“The balcony’s very high. See how high the ceilings are in the house.”
“But even so...”
“And perhaps she had heart trouble,” Isobel said, “and died of shock as she fell.”
“That is possible. This balcony runs along the house?”
“Yes.”
“Both sides?”
“Yes.”
“Which side did she fall from?”
Isobel pointed. “Outside the library. It happened during the night. Paula Lashley heard her scream.”
“I must become acquainted with these people,” Dubois said. “Who was occupying the room directly above the library?”
“She was, Floraine herself.”
“And the next room?”
“Miss Rudd.”
“I am full of questions,” he said, smiling. “I am interested in mysteries. So profound a one as this makes me forget I am a guest here and have no right to ask questions.”
“You’re not my guest,” Isobel said dryly. “Ask away.”
“It seems odd,” he said, “that Miss Rudd who lived amicably alone here with her nurse should decide to kill her. You agree?”
“Yes.”
“I hope I may see Miss Rudd. One can estimate many things about a person from his or her appearance. Character is written on the face. I find Mr. Crawford, despite his unfortunate manners, an eminently honest man who is still emotionally immature. He could be persuaded, I fancy, to play cops and robbers. He is still a boy.”
“Well, he has some very boyish habits,” Isobel said wryly. “And I don’t believe you can read character from faces. You don’t look like a cross-country skier, for instance.”
“Perhaps you’ve never met any.”
“I’ve met athletes. They don’t look or talk like you.”
He laughed. “Perhaps I looked and talked like this before I became an athlete. Your filing system is too simple, Miss Seton. You have no file marked ‘miscellaneous.’ ”
“I’ll whip one up,” Isobel said, “and you may be the first one to get into it.”
“Thank you. Who has been taking charge of the group since you arrived?”
“Taking charge?”
“Yes. There is always someone within a group who decides what the others will do or eat or wear or talk about.”
“Not in this group. I’ve tried. I wasn’t a success, thanks to Mr. Crawford’s heckling and the natural laziness and selfishness of most of the others. The difficulty is that none of them has any sense of responsibility. A woman is killed — but it’s nobody important. A bus driver disappears, we are shot at — but the driver doesn’t matter to them personally and no one was hurt from the shooting. You see?”
“I see.”
“I didn’t mean to tell you all this, but since you are here you might as well know what you’re in for.”
“I shall not be here long.”
“That’s what we thought,” Isobel said. “But here we are. Would you like some more tea?”
“Yes, thank you,” Dubois said.
Isobel found Crawford in the kitchen alone. He was standing on a chair peering into the top cupboards, making groaning noises.
“What are you looking for?” Isobel said crossly. “Or shall I guess?”
“You guess,” Crawford said.