Mr. Williams didn’t say anything. He kept looking at Jackson with his cold, sardonic eyes.
“I didn’t know you were here, sir,” Jackson said. “I just thought I’d put the fire out. I’m a little afraid of leaving fires when there’s no one in the room, sir.”
Mr. Williams’ gaze said plainly: “Don’t kid me, Jackson. You were having fun. You’ve given yourself away, Jackson.”
Mr. Williams himself said nothing.
Jackson was getting angry. He thought: You needn’t be so stiff and formal with me, Williams. I went to Harvard and I know how you look in the mornings before you shave.
He walked to the door, jerking his coat straight.
Mr. Williams’ eyes did not follow him. They were still watching the fireplace unblinkingly. Jackson walked toward him slowly.
“Hey, Williams,” he said.
He saw then that Mr. Williams had three eyes, two ordinary eyes and a third eye in the middle of his forehead. When he got closer the third eye turned out to be a round black hole.
He stood there feeling sick, partly with relief that Mr. Williams was dead and had not seen him make a fool of himself. No one had. That was his secret. Mr. Williams was dead.
He went upstairs to tell Inspector Sands.
8
When he got to the first floor Aspasia was standing in the hall. She turned pale at the sight of him.
“Jackson,” she said. “Jackson.”
One of the tight white curls on the top of her head had come loose and was straggling over her forehead, making her look rakish.
“Something has happened, Jackson?”
He glanced down at her and smiled almost affectionately. He was smiling because she was only a silly, weak little woman and nothing ever happened to her, nothing like finding a man with three eyes.
He said, “I’m afraid it has, Miss O’Shaughnessy. It might be better if you went to your room.”
Aspasia tossed the curl from her forehead. She seemed about to make a sharp retort, but instead she said sadly, “Oh, Jackson, people are always telling me to go up to my room. Please tell me what has happened.”
“Someone is dead,” Jackson said.
“Jane,” Aspasia whispered. “I told her— I warned—”
“Not Miss Stevens,” Jackson said. He moved past her down the hall. When he rapped on the library door he looked back and saw her going upstairs hanging on to the banister, moving her feet slowly and painfully.
Why, she’s old, Jackson thought with surprise, she’s quite old. His head was feeling light, he didn’t know why, and a chuckle kept forcing its way up from his stomach. Mr. Williams was dead, and Miss Aspasia was old, and Jackson was very young and alive.
The door opened and he said quietly, “Mr. Williams is dead, Inspector, shot through the forehead in the billiard room.”
“All right,” Sands said. “All right.”
Jackson stared at him. Well, by God, he thought, this is a fine thing. You get murdered, and the law says all right. Isn’t that a fine thing?
Sands walked down the hall with brisk steps. He didn’t want to see the dead Mr. Williams but he kept moving his feet quickly down the steps and into the billiard room.
The room was quite dark now and he fumbled for the light switch. The green-shaded ceiling lights went on and Mr. Williams was clearly visible in the glare. Sands walked over and touched his cheek. It was warm but not as warm as it had been.
There had been a fire, Sands saw. Mr. Williams was sitting some distance from the fireplace. The heat from it would not have kept him this warm. So he died quite recently, Sands thought.
While I was upstairs. Someone had the almighty guts to kill him while I was upstairs.
Some of his anger spilled over on Mr. Williams. He said through his teeth, “His own fault. His own damn fault.”
He had been shot at close range, Sands decided. There were powder marks around the wound. He had died instantly, almost before he had time to bleed, and the gun had been fired by someone he knew, someone who was standing in front of the chair where he was sitting relaxed and comfortable after his game of billiards. He had had a cue in his hand. It lay now beside the chair where it had fallen.
While I was upstairs, Sands thought. He played his game and sat down in that chair still holding his cue, and someone came in that door and shot him.
But the shot— Why hadn’t anyone heard the shot?
Sands went over to the wall and rapped it with his knuckles. The sound was dull and died immediately. Then he looked around and saw that there were no windows in the room, only an air-conditioning fan on one wall near the ceiling.
Why the fire then? he thought. Why do people build fires if not to keep warm? To burn something? And who had built it?
He bent over Mr. Williams and examined the palm of his right hand. There was a smudge of dirt on it that looked like coal dust.
He straightened up quickly and walked over to the doorway and stood in it. Someone was coming down the stairs.
Nora Shane stepped into the arc of light that streamed from the open door of the billiard room. She came close to him, frowning.
“What’s happened? What are you doing in the basement?”
“How do you know anything has happened?” he asked.
“Aunt Aspasia. She said someone has died.”
“Yes. Mr. Williams has been shot.”
“Shot?”
She stood perfectly still, but Sands could see her hands jerking rhythmically inside the big saddle pockets of her dress. He found himself thinking incongruously that it was a pretty dress, his favorite shade of red, and that it made her smooth hair look blacker and her eyes a brighter blue.
He said, “He’s in here. You needn’t look at him. I merely want to ask you about your method of heating this room.”
“The fireplace,” she said. Her mouth seemed stiff.
“I noticed the air-conditioning fan on the wall.”
“It’s not used,” she said. “We had it disconnected because the room isn’t often used and the fireplace is enough to heat it anyway.”
He felt oppressed. He was very close to her, bound to her within the arc of light. He could see her swallow, he could see the pulse beating in her throat and her hands jerking in time to the pulse.
He stepped back a pace with a little shiver of distaste. It was his job to protect her and thousands like her, frail, vulnerable bodies with pulses in their throats that could be stilled by the pressure of two strong thumbs; thick, massive skulls that could be crumpled like paper. Not even claws to protect themselves, like small kittens. Merely tongues, the ability to say, “Don’t take advantage of my helplessness or the police will take advantage of yours...”
The police, me, as frail as the least of them. To hell with them all, to hell—
“About these walls,” he said. “They seem pretty thick to me.”
“They’re soundproof,” Nora said.
“Why?”
“Mother wanted them that way. If any of our parties got too noisy she’d send us down here.”
“I suppose your guests know this room is soundproof?”
“I suppose so,” she said listlessly. “It’s no secret.”
“The shot apparently wasn’t heard.”
“I don’t care,” she said. “I don’t care about anything.”
She’s going to cry, Sands thought.
“I don’t have to ask you any more questions right now.”
She didn’t cry. She said, “We’ve got to stop this, send them all home immediately. I can’t ask them to stay and be murdered in my house.”
“They can’t go,” he said. “Maybe some of them don’t want to go.”
“What do you mean?”
He was standing in the doorway, and the cold air of the basement and the warm air of the room met under his collar. He put his hand up and rubbed his neck.