Crowley was silent for a few seconds. Then he said, “Would you come up to her room with me, please?”
“Yes, of course,” Ellie said.
The nurse’s bedroom was at the head of the stairs on the third floor, a bright and cheerful place that had been decorated with the same care as the rest of the house; the walls were a shade of blue-green, the furniture was smartly simple, and the blue-and-white coarse linen draperies matched the spread that was folded at the foot of the wide studio couch.
Crowley stood in the doorway and watched Ellie as she looked through the closet. “She took her new spring suit, the tweed skirt, blouses.” Her voice was troubled and low. “Everything she’d need... street shoes, loafers. Raincoat...” She turned and crossed swiftly to the bureau and began to pull out the drawers.
“They’re empty,” Crowley said.
“Yes — I see.” Ellie moved to the small combination desk-table and touched the top of it with her fingers. “She — she always kept her diary right here.”
“That’s gone,” Crowley said. “Her overnight bag is gone. And her toilet articles. Comb and brush, cologne, perfume, toothbrush, toothpaste, soap — the works.” Without realizing it, Crowley had put a sharp, demanding edge to his voice. “Personal letters, pocketbook. cash, keys. All cleaned out. How do you explain that?”
“I–I can’t.”
“No locks were forced. There was no sign of a struggle. The baby and nurse are gone. Those facts may be interpreted a dozen different ways. But right now I see only one.”
“If Kitty took her away then Jill won’t be frightened,” Ellie said in an empty, lifeless voice. “Jill knows her. They’ve been together since Jill was born.”
Ellie sat down on the edge of the studio couch and looked at the faint indentation in the smooth white surface of the pillow. The bed had been slept in; the spread had been turned back, but the blanket and sheets were only slightly I disarranged. “She went to bed that night,” Ellie said softly. She was frowning. “That’s strange—”
“Why?”
Then Ellie said, “Wait!” in a high, breathless voice, and put her hand quickly under the pillow. “I knew there was something. Yes, yes!”
“What is it?” Crowley stepped around the foot of the bed as Ellie stood up quickly. “Look,” she said. She held a rosary in her hands, an old-fashioned one with heavy wooden beads and a large cross. “She wouldn’t have left this,” Ellie said.
“She might have forgotten it.”
“No, you don’t understand. In the daytime she kept it on the bureau. At night she put it under her pillow. She said a rosary before she fell asleep.”
“Yes but—” Crowley hesitated, then shrugged. “It’s a nice habit, Ellie. That’s all.”
“Don’t you see? She was in bed ready to go to sleep. Otherwise the rosary wouldn’t have been under the pillow. Something must have waked her. She got up to see what it was — and she never came back.” Ellie shook her head impatiently. “Don’t you understand? Why should she have gone to bed if she intended to take Jill away?”
Crowley looked down at the rosary she held in her hands. Yes, it made sense. Whoever had taken the baby had also taken the nurse. Very probably... Professionals then, organized and competent, able to improvise... And that was bad. Professionals would have no compunctions about getting rid of the baby.
“I told you Kitty wasn’t involved,” Ellie said. She was looking up at Crowley, her eyes suddenly bright with hope. “We know that now. Won’t that help?”
“Yes, of course,” he said. She didn’t understand, he realized. “Now I think you’d better go back to your room and rest. I’ll call the Inspector.”
Ellie looked down at the rosary in her hands. She hesitated a second, then put it in her pocket and walked quickly from the room.
Thirteen
When they heard the car turning into the drive Grant glanced at Hank and then walked to the windows, his hand instinctively moving toward the gun in his pocket. As he pulled the curtains back, Belle said. “Is it them, honey?” Her voice was like an anxious child’s, uneasy and guarded, appealing to grownups for reassurance.
“Sure, it’s them,” Grant said bitterly. “With their arms full of junk. They must have hit every goddam store in town.”
“Williamsboro is quite a shopping center,” Hank said, and Grant looked at him, his eyes narrowing irritably. “The psychology bit, eh? Don’t strain yourself, Junior.”
Hank glanced at his watch: eleven o’clock. Duke had been gone about two hours and the tension had been building steadily; Grant was worried and his fears had infected Belle. She had attempted a few chattery gambits to break the long silences, but Grant was in no mood for small talk. For the past hour there had been little conversation. Once Grant had said to Hank, “You don’t like Duke, eh?” but Hank had shrugged off the question. Later Grant had come back to the subject from a different direction. “What did he do to you? You must have crossed him. He’s a loyal guy. I know him. He sticks to his friends.”
“You’d have to ask his friends about that,” Hank said.
“Yeah? I don’t have to ask anybody.”
There was a step on the porch and then the door was pushed open and Duke and (he nurse came into the room. In the movement and noise of their entrance Hank caught her eye, trying to read something in her expression; but she seemed distracted and nervous, and there was no communion between them, no warmth or awareness or recognition. He wondered if he had imagined her reaction to him last night.
“The baby’s fine, I think,” Belle said to her. “I haven’t heard a peep out of her.”
“I’ll go up,” Kitty said, turning to the stairs.
“If she’s awake, tell her we’ve got the stuff to fix her up,” Duke said. He was in a jubilant mood; a cigar jutted at a comical angle from his mouth, and his cheeks were flushed with sun and air and excitement. Hank knew the reason for his high spirits; the danger of being in town with the girl had exhilarated him. He always needed such stimulants; without them he became bored and sullen and troublesome.
“Take some of this loot,” he said, handing a big shopping bag to Belle. “We’re going to eat for a change. I’ve got steaks here two inches thick, and a dozen big Idahos.” He whacked Belle lightly on the hip with the flat of his hand. “Come on, shake it. I’ll make the sauce for the potatoes — a Duke Farrel special with cheese and butter. We’ll hate ourselves in the morning, eh, Belle?”
Belle responded gratefully to his enthusiasm. “Well, we’ll be a long time dead,” she said, laughing, “so let’s live it up a little.”
Belle loved a good time. Food and drink in generous amounts, jokes, horseplay, kidding around — this was her notion of a party. She knew from long experience that nothing mattered unless the men were in a cheerful mood: if they just ate and drank and got mad when you tried to cheer them up — that was murder. Now Duke seemed to be coming to life, and she was hoping some of it would rub off on Eddie.
“Steaks for lunch,” she said, smiling at him. “Black on the outside, pink on the inside. Like that place in Chicago you were talking about. Donovan’s.”
“Donovan’s?” Duke said, still grinning. “Everybody in jail thought about women. Except Eddie. He was torching for a steak house.”
“It was good enough for the biggest people in town,” Grant said shortly.
“Sure, sure,” Duke said. “Look, we need something to drink. We got nothing here but rum.”
“Rum is all right,” Belle said. She noticed unhappily that Eddie wasn’t responding to Duke’s good humor. Just when they had a chance for a little fun...