Sabina thought she saw movement then, a vague shadow shape close to the back wall. She strained forward, squinting. Movement again? She couldn’t be sure; her eyes might have been playing tricks on her. And she saw nothing more. The shadow shape, if it had been there at all, had vanished.
Other lights bloomed in the house, upstairs first and then downstairs. Alarmed voices filtered out, at least two, both loud enough for her to hear but not for the words to be distinguishable. Shouts, followed by a series of hollow poundings as of fists beating against wood. More shouts, louder, one of them carrying a word that might have been “Uncle!” And then more noises, these unidentifiable.
The moon reappeared, bathing the house in a talcumy whiteness. Sabina stepped closer to the fence. It was of bamboo and some two feet in height, little more than a boundary marker.
Don’t become involved!
She paid no heed to the inner warning. She had never backed away from a crisis situation no matter how much personal peril it might entail; was professionally and constitutionally incapable of it. Well trained, inquisitive, and probably too fearless for her own good. If someone had been harmed in the Pettibone house, there might be aid she could render. She raised her skirts, climbed over the low fence, and crossed at an angle toward the rear of the house.
At first she made haste, but the ground was uneven in spots, the turf littered with small obstacles of storm debris. The toe of her sandal caught on something, nearly tripped her, and caused her to slow her pace. When she reached the rear corner, she paused before stepping cautiously around it. The light came through the near window, she saw then; the one adjacent was shuttered. Not quite into the light, she craned her head forward until she could look through the window past parted drapes.
Her view of the chandelier-lit room beyond was limited, but she saw enough to confirm that a tragedy had taken place there. There were four people in the room, all of them clad in what appeared to be hastily donned robes. Philip Oakes and a middle-aged Chinese man were bent over a motionless form lying prone on the floor, one arm outflung as if reaching for the handgun a short distance away; the secretary, Earlene Thurmond, hovered behind them. The fallen man’s face was turned away, but his dust-gray hair and liver-spotted scalp left no doubt that he was Gordon Pettibone.
The Chinese man raised his head, and Sabina quickly withdrew. She backed around the corner, turned from the house. The moonlight was still bright as she began picking her way back across the grass.
She was halfway to the boundary fence when the side porch door flew open and Philip Oakes came hurrying out.
He couldn’t miss seeing her, and didn’t. He called, “Who is it? Who goes there?”
Uh-oh — caught. Sabina halted. Nothing to do now but stand her ground and make the best of it.
Oakes ran up to her, the tails of his flowered robe flapping around him. “Cheng thought he saw someone out here... oh, it’s you, Mrs. Quincannon. What are you doing here?”
“I couldn’t sleep and went for a walk on the beach. I was on my way back when I heard what sounded like a pistol shot. Other noises, too. I know I shouldn’t have trespassed, but—”
He waved that away. “Never mind. Never mind. It was a pistol shot you heard.”
“What happened?”
“My uncle shot himself.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. Is he badly hurt?”
“He’s dead. Dead.” Oakes did not sound distraught, or even particularly upset. His only emotional reaction appeared to be a mild agitation. “It was an accident. Locked himself in the study, fiddled with that pistol of his, and it went off and blew a hole in his chest. Dead as a doornail.”
Sabina couldn’t help asking, “Was he in the habit of doing that?”
“Doing what?”
“Locking himself in his study at this hour with a loaded pistol.”
“I don’t know. He might have been, he had queer habits. Queer habits.” Oakes shook his head as if to refocus his thoughts. “The police,” he said then, “I have to telephone for the police. You’ll inform the Pritchards, will you? They’ll want to know of the accident. Accident,” he repeated, stressing the word this time.
“Yes, of course I will.”
They went in separate directions, Oakes back to the side porch and Sabina across the grass and over the fence near the guesthouse. Lights shone in two of the upstairs windows in the main house; Lyman and Margaret, Alika and Kaipo must have been awakened by the noises. That made Sabina’s task a little easier. She hadn’t relished the choice of either waking the household herself at this hour or waiting until dawn to honor her promise.
It was Lyman who opened the front door in answer to her ring. His eyes expressed surprise that she was fully dressed at this hour, but she forestalled comment by saying she had urgent news. He ushered her into the living room, where Margaret joined them. The Pritchards naturally expressed shock at the news of Gordon Pettibone’s sudden demise, and not a little puzzlement at the circumstances.
“I don’t understand how such a terrible thing could happen,” Margaret said. One of her ash-blond curls had come unpinned and drooped down over her forehead; absently she brushed it back into place. Her eyes were sad as well as bemused.
“Mr. Oakes seems convinced it was an accident.” Overly convinced for some reason — a thought Sabina kept to herself.
“Gordon was certainly eccentric,” Lyman said, “but I can’t imagine him sitting in his study cleaning or handling a pistol in the middle of the night.”
“Did he collect firearms?”
“I don’t believe so. We’ve been to his home a few times and I never saw any.”
Margaret said, “It must have been an accident. I can’t imagine him taking his own life. Or anyone in the household wanting to... well... harm him.”
Sabina hadn’t mentioned the vague shadow shape; she still was not sure it had been anything other than a figment of her imagination. But the memory of it, real or not, prompted her to ask, “Are you aware of any enemies Mr. Pettibone might have had?”
Lyman finger-combed his mustache, shook his head. “Not everyone in the business community approved of his methods, but enemies? No, not to my knowledge.”
“Good relations with the others in the household?”
The Pritchards exchanged glances. Again it was Lyman who answered. “As far as we know. Gordon and Philip had their disagreements, as I expect you noticed Saturday evening, but there seemed to be no real hostility between them.”
Margaret said impulsively, “I doubt that Cheng and Miss Thurmond cared for him. He treated them as if they were slaves.”
That brought a reproof from her husband. “You mustn’t speak ill of the dead, my dear. It hardly matters now what faults Gordon may have had.”
It did, Sabina thought, if his death had been neither accidental nor willful... that shadow shape again. But there was no point in allowing herself to pursue the possibility of foul play. Gordon Pettibone’s death was a matter for the police to deal with, and none of her business in any case.
“Yes, you’re right, I’m sorry,” Margaret said to Lyman. Then, “I wonder if there is anything we can do for Philip and Miss Thurmond.”
“You mean now? No. We would only be in the way when the police arrive. Tomorrow is soon enough to offer condolences.” He stifled a yawn, rose to his feet. “What we need to do now is go back to bed.”
“There’ll be no more sleep for me tonight.”
“There must be for me — I have to be in the office at nine. That may sound callous,” he added for Sabina’s benefit, “but life goes on no matter how close to home tragedy strikes.”