“The poor wretch of a woman told me that she killed him. And I didn’t have sense enough to believe her. Somehow her story didn’t ring true to me. I was convinced that it was fantasy masking the actual event.”
“Is that why you wouldn’t let Trask talk to her?”
“Yes. The present state of the law being what it is, a doctor has a duty to protect his patients, especially the semi-psychotic ones. We can’t run off to the police with every sick delusion they come up with. But in this case,” he added reluctantly, “it seems I was mistaken.”
“You’re not sure.”
“I’m no longer sure about anything.”
“Exactly what did she say to you?”
“She heard the sounds of a struggle, two men fighting and calling each other names. A gun went off. She was terrified, of course, but she forced herself to go to the front door. Culligan was lying on the lawn. The other man was just driving away in the Jaguar. When he was out of sight, she went out to Culligan. Her intention was to help him, she said, but she saw his knife in the grass. She picked it up and – used it.”
We had reached the foot of Sable’s hill. Howell wrestled his car up the climbing curves. The tires shuddered and screeched like lost souls under punishment.
Chapter 29
SABLE MUST HAVE heard the car, and been waiting behind the door for Howell’s knock. He opened the door at once. His bloodshot eyes began to water in the strong sunlight, and he sneezed.
“Where is your wife?” Howell said.
“In her own room, where she belongs. There was so much noise and confusion in the nursing home–”
“I want to see her.”
“I don’t think so, Doctor. I understand you’ve been grilling her about the unfortunate crime that occurred on our premises. It’s been most disturbing to Alice. You told me yourself that she shouldn’t be forced to talk about it.”
“She brought up the subject of her own accord. I demand to be allowed to see her.”
“Demand, Doctor? How can you do that? I should make it clear, I suppose, that I’m terminating your services as of now. I intend to hire a new crew of doctors, and find a place where Alice can rest in peace.”
The phrase set up whispering echoes which Howell’s voice cut through:
“You don’t hire doctors, Sable, and you don’t fire them.”
“Your law is rusty. Perhaps you should hire a lawyer. You’re certainly going to need one if you try to force your way into my house.” Sable’s voice was controlled, but queerly atonal.
“I have a duty to my patient. You had no right to remove her from nursing care.”
“From your third-degree methods, you mean? Let me remind you, if you need reminding, that anything Alice has said to you is privileged. I employed you and the others in my capacity as her lawyer in order to have your assistance in determining certain facts. Is that clear? If you communicate these facts or alleged facts to anyone, official or unofficial, I’ll sue you for criminal libel.”
“You’re talking doubletalk,” I said. “You won’t be suing anybody.”
“Won’t I, though? You’re in roughly the same position as Dr. Howell. I employed you to make a certain investigation, and ordered you to communicate the results orally to me. Any further communication is a breach of contract. Try it out, and by God I’ll have your license.”
I didn’t know if he was legally right. I didn’t care. When he started to swing the door shut, I set my foot against it:
“We’re coming in, Sable.”
“I think not,” his queer new voice said.
He reached behind the door and stepped back with a gun in his hands. It was a long, heavy gun, a deer rifle with a telescopic sight. He raised it deliberately. I looked directly into the muzzle, at the clean, glinting spiral of the rifling.
Sable curled his finger on the trigger, and cuddled the polished stock against his cheek. His face had a fine glaze on it, like porcelain. I realized that he was ready to kill me.
“Put it down,” Howell said.
He moved ahead of me into the doorway, taking my place in the line of fire:
“Put it down, Gordon. You’re not yourself, you’re feeling upset, you’re terribly worried about Alice. But we’re your friends, we’re Alice’s friends, too. We want to help you both.”
“I have no friends,” Sable said. “I know why you’re here, why you want to talk to Alice. And I’m not going to let you.”
“Don’t be silly, Gordon. You can’t look after a sick woman by yourself. I know you don’t care about your personal safety, but you have to consider Alice’s safety. She needs looking after, Gordon. So put it down now, let me in to see her.”
“Get back. I’ll shoot.”
Sable’s voice was a high sharp yell. His wife must have heard it. From deep inside the house, she cried out in answer:
“No!”
Sable blinked against the light. He looked like a sleepwalker waking up on the verge of a precipice. Behind him his wife’s crying went on, punctuated by resounding blows and then a crash of glass.
Caught between impossible pressures, Sable half-turned toward the noise. The rifle swung sideways with his movement. I went in past Howell and got one hand on the gun-barrel and the other on the knot of Sable’s tie. I heaved. Man and rifle came apart.
Sable thudded against the wall and almost fell. He was breathing hard. His hair was in his eyes. He bore a strange resemblance to an old woman peering out through the fringes of a matted white wig.
I opened the breech of the rifle. While I was unloading it, running feet slapped the pavement of the inner court. Alice Sable appeared at the end of the hallway. Her light hair was ruffled, and her nightgown was twisted around her slender body. Blood ran down over her naked foot from a cut in her leg.
“I hurt myself on the window,” she said in a small voice. “I cut myself on the glass.”
“Did you have to break it?” Sable made an abrupt, threatening movement toward her. Then he remembered us, and sweetened his tone: “Go back to your room, dear. You don’t want to run around half-dressed in front of visitors.”
“Dr. Howell isn’t a visitor. You came to fix it where I hurt myself, didn’t you?”
She moved uncertainly toward the doctor. He went to meet her with his hands out. “Of course I did. Come back to your room with me and we’ll fix it now.”
“But I don’t want to go back in there. I hate it in there, it depresses me. Peter used to visit me in there.”
“Be quiet!” Sable said.
She moved behind the doctor, making her body small as if to claim a child’s irresponsibility. From the protection of Howell’s shoulder, she peered sadly at her husband:
“Be quiet is all you say to me. Be quiet, hush it up. But what’s the use, Gordon? Everybody knows about me and Peter. Dr. Howell knows. I made a clean breast of it to him.”
Her hand went to her breast, and fingered the rosebuds embroidered on her nightgown. Her heavy gaze swung to me. “This man knows about me, too, I can see it in his face.”
“Did you kill him, Mrs. Sable?”
“Don’t answer,” Sable said.
“But I want to confess. I’ll feel better then, won’t I?” Her smile was bright and agonized. It faded, leaving its lines in her face and her teeth bare: “I did kill him. The fellow in the black car knocked him out, and I went out and stabbed him.”
Her hand jerked downward from her breast, clenched on an imaginary knife. Her husband watched her like a poker-player.
“Why did you do it?” I said.
“I don’t know. I guess I just got sick of him. Now it’s time for me to take my punishment. I killed, and I deserve to die.”
The tragic words had an unreal quality. She spoke them like a life-size puppet activated by strings and used by a voice that didn’t belong to her. Only her eyes were her own, and they contained a persistent stunned innocence.