In that short static instant that seemed to be cut out and isolated from the even flow of time. I noticed one other thing. She was young, 35 at the most, yet her hair was snow-white.
Watrous spoke first, his hearty voice thinned to a whisper. “It’s Linda,” he said, “Linda Skelton.”
Merlini bent forward above the right hand, his light held close. The hand was a tight, hard fist and from between the fingers a small, cylindrical glass bottle projected glinting in the light. Merlini sniffed at it cautiously.
“Cyanide,” he said. “The old favorite. It kills quickly enough, Lord knows, but—”
He put out two fingers and touched the white arm. “Merlini,” I heard myself say, “I think the house is on fire!”
Chapter Four:
THE FIRE
Merlini took his hand from the woman’s arm and slowly straightened up. His eyes were still intent on the quiet figure. Then, finally, as if my words had just reached him, he looked up. “What?” he said sharply.
Colonel Watrous ran toward the window.
“Fire,” I repeated. “Cellar. I think. Come on.”
I took the stairs two at a time. As I turned on the second-floor landing, I looked back and saw Watrous come out, running. Merlini appeared behind him and I heard the door slam. I went on. There was a faint smoke haze beginning in the lower hall, and the acrid smell of fire.
In the kitchen I pulled at the cellar door. Smoke rolled out at the top of the opening, blurring the beam from my torch; down behind it was a wavering reddish glow and the crackle of flame. I ducked low and went in. I heard the others close behind me. “Watch these steps, Colonel,” I shouted.
The door that led to the boat landing was dark, but the one opposite was bright. In there, directly beneath the living-room, a pile of debris — rags and wood and the torn pages of old books — burned fiercely.
Merlini’s voice came, quick and steady, assuming command. “In the corner there, Ross!” His light indicated dusty old rugs, rolled and stacked. He stooped, picked a piece of two-by-four from the floor, and attacked the blaze, scattering it.
I hauled at one of the rugs, pulling it clear of the pile, and kicked at it so that it unrolled. I took one corner and Watrous grabbed at the one opposite. We lifted and ran forward, pulling the rug up and over the flames. The smoke, belching suddenly from beneath, drove us back, coughing.
I saw Merlini come from the door in through the smoke. He carried a battered coal scuttle that dripped. He swung it quickly, and the water gushed in a long arc across the rug. I followed him out and found a pail lying in a litter of broken bottles and tinware. Its bottom was rusted through, but by hurrying I managed each time to get about half the water in and onto the rug. The Colonel was beating at the stray, scattered bits of flame with an old broom.
The smoke drove us out eventually, but the flames were done. We had pulled a second rug onto the heap and soaked that. Then, coughing and with smarting eyes, we made for the open air.
I soaked my handkerchief in the cold river water and swabbed my face. Merlini pulled the door to after him to kill the draft.
“That should hold it,” he said. “For a while at least. We’ll have to watch it. In the meantime, there’s some unfinished business.”
He walked out on the narrow stone walk that ran just above the water along the back of the house, and turned his torch upward to where, three and a half stories above, the open shutter still moved monotonously in the rising breeze.
We followed him up a short flight of steps to ground level and around the house toward the front door. Merlini walked quickly, his light searching the ground. A curl of smoke still came through the broken panes of a barred cellar window at the side of the porch.
When we stood before the door of the room on the top floor again, I saw Merlini kneel down and pick up a long, bright yellow pencil that lay on the floor close to the door.
“That wasn’t there before,” I said, wondering. “What—”
It’s mine, he replied, rising and pushing at the door. “I must have dropped it. You two wait here a moment.” He made a rapid examination of the floor and the grimy faded carpet. “All right. Come on.”
I moved mechanically toward the armchair knowing that I had not the slightest desire to look again at what lay there, at the fixed stare and the glazed, wide-open dark eyes that sent back no answering sparkle as the light touched them. Death had brought no peace, no limp quietness to the body. The jaw was tightly clamped, the muscles on either side rigid, the hands clenched desperately in an agonized grip on nothing. The whole figure had a tight, tense look as if time had stopped suddenly and caught it suspended part way in a painful convulsive action. A strange, dusky violet hue suffused the face and neck and made the paper-white hair seem whiter.
As my light moved down over the bare throat and over the blue woolen dress, I bent closer, wondering why the simple V-shaped neckline seemed so oddly severe, almost unfinished in appearance, and why the upper part of the dress appeared to be pulled out of shape. Then I saw the short torn ends of threads and knew that the dress had had a collar which had been forcibly ripped away.
As my hand brushed accidentally against the dead arm, I also knew the meaning of the intent look that had been on Merlini’s face and the reason my announcement of the fire had gone for a moment unheard. I knew what he had known then: that this woman couldn’t have been the eavesdropper who had listened and dropped the flashlight. Linda Skelton had not been the person we had followed up and into this room. She had not swallowed the poison just before we came in. The body was cold, much too cold.
I lifted gently on the arm and the whole body started to tip. Rigor mortis was complete. She had been dead for hours.
Merlini stood in the center of the room, turning slowly, his light searching the walls. There was no furniture except the armchair, the table, and the disreputable couch, low to the floor. No hiding place and no exits save the door through which we had come and the one window that was open at the top. Merlini examined the window seat and then stepped up on it, looking out. Colonel Watrous and I watched him silently.
Suddenly he turned and stepped down. “Job for you, Ross,” he said quickly. “This is rapidly getting out of hand. I have an overwhelming desire for policemen, detectives, law, order, authority — lots of them. Particularly Inspector Gavigan & Company. You get on a phone and get him — out of bed if necessary — but be sure you get him. No substitutes will do. I want to keep my seat for the rest of this performance, and if Bronx or Queens dicks show up — I don’t know whose territory we’re in — we won’t know any more about it after tonight than what we read in the papers. And you might—”
Colonel Watrous broke in, his words clipped and tight. “Wait. I’d better go and get back in at my window. Rappourt’s going to think it queer if I’m missing down there and turn up in your company.”
“No,” Merlini objected. “You stick here. I may need a witness. Your story can be that you saw lights up here and came out to investigate. That’s true enough, isn’t it?”
“Yes. But — but how are you going to explain your presence here? She’s going to wonder about that.”
“We can’t help that. We’re up against something more important than exposing her. Besides, Miss Verrill invited me out tonight, too. We’ll let her take the responsibility.”
“Sigrid invited — but how? I didn’t know—”
“She likes Rappourt’s séances even less than you do. Her father’s an old friend of mine. She and Arnold sent me, an S O S. By the way, how many people are there on this island? Who else besides yourself, Madame Rappourt, Arnold and Floyd Skelton, and Miss Verrill?”