The man reached for the blank, and she let it go out of her fingers despairingly. A train pulled in. She wished she had the nerve to drop everything and climb on board. It was headed south. Maybe it went back to Chicago. What difference where it went? But she hadn't enough money. Trapped, she thought
She paid the man less than a dollar. The word would go out over the wires and reach Art Killeen, and he would come running. Of course he would. Wasn't Innes Whitiock
his pet client? His wealthy patron? Wasn't there percentage in coming when Innes called? Now he'd know the bargain she'd made and see the short end of it. See Innes trembling and making this cowardly will and whimng about murder.
Alice walked out onto the platform. It blurred in her sight. The town train-meeters watched her with curiosity. They probably knew exactly who she was. Let them. She kicked at the boards and raised her eyes to the train.
There! There in the window, a face she knew. A long, wise, sad face. Her heart jumped. She knew it well, knew every line. For a whole year she'd sat and watched that face, and she knew its whole repertoire of expressions MacDougal Duff. A friend. A face she knew
"Mr. Duff! Professor Duff!"
But she had to talk to him! Because he would know. He did know about murder. He was an expert. He could tell Innes and set them right If only she could talk to him about It and bring him up to that house and let some sense m and clear up this stupid, maddening, suspicious, uncer-tam, upsetting situation!
"Mr. Duff ... oh, please!"
She ran along. He saw her now and smiled. How sweet his smile was! He knew her. He remembered her. But he was just going through.
Just going through.
Alice stood still. Why should MacDougal Duff break his trip for her? The train bumbled along; its rear end swayed; it crawled off, heading for the little hills.
She dug her fists into her pockets, whipped around on her heel, and made for the car. Up across the town she could see the peeling face of the Whitlock house. Damned jack-o-lantern, she thought.
A small boy, adoring eyes fixed on the big car wWle his body was paralyzed in utter admiration in a tricky pose on a baggage toick, fell off as she viciously slammed the door ot the haughty beauty. She turned the crumpled fender and went roaring up the main street.
A dog ran from her angry horn, a typical Ogaunee dog, a miserable hound. She swept with a speed and splendor up the hill.
Alien, she was. Alien in this ghastly town, this dead, this dying place. With a sick millionaire and his delusions on her hands, and no sympathy, not a scrap of it, for him in her heart.
Alice went down for lunch at one o'clock. Innes and she had spent a quiet morning. He read. She read. They were quite apart, but she was there m the room and that was all he seemed to want. The doctor had come and gone. Come directly from the front door, turning his eyes neither to the left nor the right, and gone out the same way. Alice reported a quiet night and only four of the pills taken. The doctor, viewing Innes thoughtfully, said they were to continue.
At one, she gave Innes another pill, called Fred to hover near by, and went down to her lunch.
The sisters were in the dining room. Gertrude sat at the head of the table, as befitted the oldest one. Today she wore a brown silk dress, particularly unbecoming to her colorless face. Alice watched her push food onto her fork with a dainty crust of bread. She managed very well. One would scarcely think she was blind. Except for the spots, old spots from old food, visible on the bosom of her dress. A gob of mayonnaise landed there, and helplessly Alice watched it slide. One did not say to Gertrude Whidock, "Hey, there, you spilled something."
Maud, who could perfecdy well see with those little sharp gray eyes, was even filthier. She gobbled, she slupped, she chewed with sound effects. Her teeth clicked. Her fingernails were banded in black. Alice kept her eyes averted from that quarter.
Isabel was rather dainty, though awkward with her left hand. She had to pursue bits around her plate. She had no crust of bread to capture them. She kept the right hand in the kid glove resting primly in her lap. A fine crewl thought Alice. Dear lord, how long?
The food was good, although not too plentiful. Isabel savored every morsel as if it were her last. Isabel, AUce gathered, ran the house and did the ordering. It was beneath Gertrude, for some reason. And Maud was far too lazy to be bothered.
Talk was heavy going.
"Innes tells me," said Alice, "that there used to be a
pine woods behind the house. How lovely it must have been!"
"Yes," said Gertrude, "there is a pine woods, of
course."
So that was stopped. One didn't say to Gertrude Whitlock, "Oh, no, Miss Whitlock, youVe forgotten. There's only an ugly hole in the ground.''
She tried again. "Innes tells me his father was the original owner of all this land."
"Certainly," said Gertrude.
"Papa," murmured Isabel. "Let's not speak of him, Alice, please. This is such a ... a nervous day."
Alice stared.
"My father was killed in an automobile accident," Gertrude said piously. "Isabel was with him. It was a terrible experience."
"I'm so sorry. I didn't know.''
"Well, how do you like the family?" boomed Maud, disconcertingly enough.
Alice smiled, opened her lips to speak, and smiled again.
"We're a bunch of old women," Maud said. "Ha ha. When's the doctor coming?"
"He's been," mouthed Alice.
"What? What did she say?"
Isabel ripped off the brief remark on her fingers.
"Oh, he's been, eh?" Maud looked disappointed. "Say, Isabel, Innes ought to have some wine."
"I have the keys," said Isabel
Maud twisted her lips to dislodge something from a tooth. "If I had any sense Fd go to the dentist," she an-noimced rather cheerfully.
Alice finished her meal and fled, excusing herself for nurse's duty. They were fantastic, she thought Disjointed. Scattered. She went into the kitchen to search for some ice.
The kitchen was large and old. The linoleum on the floor had tracks in it, beaten bare. Josephine was washing dishes with her big hands pmk and bright in the suds. She brought them out, dripping, and showed Alice the ice pick. No newfangled electric icebox here.
Alice was picking daintily away at a hunk of slippery
ice when she felt herself surrounded by the aura of Mr. Johnson. He had on a stiff, clean new pair of cotton work pants, but the green shirt was the same. Also the underwear. The pick fell from her nerveless fingers, and he took it, aimed one vicious powerful blow that struck like lightning and shattered the whole side of the ice cake. • He grinned. His teeth were very bad. "O.K.?" he said.
"Thank you," said Alice and filled her dish, watching out of the comer of her eye as he sauntered over and picked an apple peel off a dirty dish to nibble on. She fled, wondering for the nineteenth time who and why was Mr. Johnson.
At the top of the stairs she looked back. He was sauntering mto the sitting room. She heard Maud's voice. "Say, go on downtown and get me a box of chocolates."
"Where's the money?" said Mr. Johnson.
"You got money," Maud said. "Go on, be a sport."
Then there was silence. An ugly silence. Alice fled for the third time. Her unagination, she told herself with fervent hope, was too vivid.
Fred took the bowl of ice. "He's taking a nap.''
"Oh. Well, then . . .''
"Want to give me the keys?" Fred said.
"Of course. I'm sorry. They're in my purse." She went off to her own room and in a moment he followed. He stepped inside the room and half closed the door.
"Is Innes all right?" she said automatically.
"Sure. I can hear. Nobody came near him all morning, did they?"