December 10.
I bought Lucille’s Christmas present today, a gorgeous rawhide dressing case, and of course now Polly wants one too. Andrew phoned to say he won’t be home until late tonight because Mrs. Peterson’s time is up and she absolutely refuses to go to a hospital. So I guess I’ll drop over to Lucille’s for a while. I want to show her the new earrings Andrew bought me. Later. Well, here I am. Lucille has the living room beautifully decorated for Christmas with clusters of pine tied with ribbon. I was quite envious. I asked her where she got it and she said she’d simply gone out into the park and cut it, and we both laughed. I think I’ll try it too! The pine smells so fresh and clean, and think of the fun cutting it for oneself!
It was the last entry. The pictures kept forming in Sands’ mind, though there were no more words to hang them on.
Mildred, pink and pretty against the pine.
“Oh, I love it! It smells so fresh and clean.”
“Yes, doesn’t it. I cut it myself.”
“How exciting!”
“We could go out and cut some for you. It’s snowing, the night is dark, and I have an ax.”
“An ax? Oh, goody!”
“Yes, an ax...”
Had the details of the plan occurred to her suddenly at that point? Or had she plotted ft carefully beforehand, using the pine as the bait for Mildred to swallow, more innocent than any trout? No one would ever know now. Lucille’s secrets had been buried with her in a closed coffin.
They went, laughing, out into the snow.
“Oh, this is fun! Wait’ll I tell Andrew.”
“Here, let me cut it for you. I’m bigger than you are.”
“Do be careful. It’s rather frightening out here alone, isn’t it?”
“I’m not frightened.”
“I just meant, the dark. I can hardly see you, Lucille! Lucille! Where are you? Lucille!”
“Why I’m right here. Behind you. With an ax.”
The ax swung and whistled. The snow fell soundlessly and covered Mildred and the tracks.
What had Lucille done with the ax? Put it in the furnace, Sands thought. The handle would burn, and if the fire was high enough the blade itself might be distorted beyond recognition. And Mildred’s jewels — had she put them in the furnace with the ax, or did she hide them, hoping to sell them later? Perhaps she had never intended to sell them and had taken them only in the hope that Mildred’s death would be construed as a robbery.
As it was, Sands thought grimly. Thanks to Inspector Hannegan’s precious bungling.
He returned to Lucille. He could see her destroying the ax, and hiding the jewels and then coming, suddenly, upon the diary Mildred had left behind in the sitting room. If she hadn’t been pressed for time she might have read the diary then and there and realized that it would have to be destroyed. But she didn’t have time to read it and she was cautious enough not to want to destroy it if it should prove harmless to her.
Where has it been all these years? Sands thought.
At one o’clock Andrew Morrow had come home. “Edith! Edith, wake up! Mildred isn’t home yet. Something must have happened to her.”
“Why, she was just over at Lucille’s.”
“I’m going over to get her.”
They had gone over to Lucille’s hut they didn’t get Mildred.
“She left here ages ago, before eleven o’clock. I thought she was going straight home.”
“She’s not there.”
“She may have decided to go for a walk, and stumbled and fell.”
“Come on, Edith, we’ll look for her.”
“Wait and I’ll get dressed and help you look.”
She had helped them look, guiding them firmly away from the tree that sheltered Mildred.
Hers had remained the guiding hand. She soothed Edith and nursed Andrew through his illness and got the children off to school; and when she had become indispensable, he married her.
Sands closed the diary and put it in his pocket. He thought of Edith creeping downstairs with the diary, finding only a paper bag to wrap it in, and sending it not to him, Sands, but to her new friend, Janet Green.
To send it to me would have been too final and definite an act, he thought. She wasn’t sure, she wanted only to get the diary in some safe place outside the house until she could decide what to do about it.
He felt a sudden terrible pity for Edith, not because she was dead but because in her childish impulsiveness and indecision she had sent the diary to Janet Green.
Polly came in and found Sands slumped in the chair, holding his head with one hand.
He rose when he saw her, but for a minute neither of them spoke. He noticed that she had not been crying but her face had the strained set look that told of deep and bitter tears inside.
“I was — we were just going to phone you. My father will be down in a minute. He thinks... he thinks Edith killed herself.”
“Why?” Sands said, and had to repeat it. “Why?”
“It wasn’t natural.” She turned her face and gazed stonily out of the window. “My father thinks it was morphine.”
“Why morphine?”
“I don’t know. He just thinks so. She was in his room last night, half-hysterical, begging him to give her something to make her sleep. He unlocked his cupboard and then went into the bathroom to mix her a bromide. It must have been then when it happened.”
“What did?”
“When she — took the morphine.”
“Why?”
She turned and looked at him. “You keep asking why and I don’t know.”
“Can you take advice?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Get out of this house right away. Walk out the door and don’t look back.”
“Are you — crazy?”
“Go to your lieutenant. Don’t stop to pack or think. Pick up your coat and get out.”
“I... can’t.”
“Don’t argue.”
Her eyes widened. “I don’t understand you. You’re frightening me. I can’t leave my father. And there’s no reason — no reason...”
He reached out and grasped her shoulder savagely.
“Get out of this house. Run. Don’t let anything stop you.”
Neither of them had heard Andrew approaching. He spoke from the doorway. “Mr. Sands is right. I advise you to go.”
He sounded tired but perfectly under control. “Lieutenant Frome’s leave is up Sunday, isn’t it? Today is Thursday, you haven’t much time.”
She looked from one man to the other, her mouth open in bewilderment.
“I don’t understand. You know I can’t leave you here alone, Father.”
“Why not? Has it occurred to you that I might prefer to be alone?”
Sands stepped back and watched the two of them. It might have been an ordinary family argument except that the girl’s eyes had too much fear in them, and there was too much acid in the man’s voice.
“I think I’m old enough to be allowed some freedom, Polly. Edith is dead now, the whole business is ended. Do you know what that means to me, in plain realistic terms? It means I’m no longer phone-ridden.”