The Night Before Murder Read online

  "Well?" she demanded. "Well?"

  "You've had a turn for the worse," he said. "I shouldn't have permitted you company."

  "Am I going to die?"

  There, she had said it; it was out, off her tongue now, the words she had been afraid to say, afraid to think, she had spoken them and the doctor had halted and was looking around and down at her… the big, gray-haired, robust man who was so healthy, was standing at the foot of the bed looking at her.

  "No," he said, "I don't think so."

  Her body eased, though pain racked it, and every muscle seemed to be burning; she let the breath wheeze out of her lungs. No, she thought, I can't die. Thank God, I'm not going to die. There are plays I want to do yet. There are performances through which I must yet live. There are things in the world still new to me.

  She shuddered, and she could feel how frail her body was. She shuddered because she thought of what she had intended to do... what she had thought would be new to her. She must have been mad. She wasn't really bored with life. She wasn't bored with anything. Everything was new. She was a little girl reaching out into a world of wonders. Oh, dear God in Heaven, I didn't mean the things I thought. Oh, dear God, you must spare me, sixty is so young to die. My body is healthy and sound. My mind is active and brilliant. I entertain. I act on a stage and entertain other people. Dear God, I must not die. I must live. I must—

  She sank into a coma.

  When she awakened the lids of her eyes burned and the pupils of them were bloodshot so that she saw everything through a reddish haze. Everything was different. There was no pain now, only numbness. She was drugged. She sought to rescue her mind from the vague mist in which it was floundering. She grasped for clearer thought, and yet she could not lift herself from the fog. She had to see things, to think things, only half conscious, only half of her faculties in use; her brilliance was gone, she was a mumbling, trembling, miserable old woman.

  She saw the doctor, the big, gray-haired one, and she saw other men. She did not at first know who they were, and then vaguely she remembered having asked for other doctors and she knew these must be they. At least four doctors, pacing around the room, bending over her, standing by the window. It was night. There were stars in the sky. The house was still. The room was still. But outside there were boat horns from the Sound and faintly she heard laughter, and then the rumble of a train, a great empty freight. Doctors walked around everywhere. Young doctors and old. Once she saw Betty's stupid face, and Grant's, but when she tried to speak to them they were gone and another doctor was looking at her. She struggled to raise herself on the bed, but her body was limp and useless. She remembered that she was an actress. Above everything else she remembered that and now she tried to scream. She was trying to scream, but her voice came out in a hoarse whisper.

  "I've been murdered!" she said.

  It was only a whisper, and she did not have all of her faculties, but it was a wonderful whisper; it carried on sound weaves through the room; it resounded from the walls. Its execution had been perfect. The emphasis had been dramatically correct. It was vital and alive. They all turned and stared down at her.

  She closed her eyes and died.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Dorothy awakened at ten in the morning and stretched lazily so that she might give full appreciation to the cool comfort of the big bed. She lay there, listening to the song of what sounded like a thousand birds outside her window, and wondering what her surprised stomach would do when it got a real breakfast instead of coffee and doughnuts. She ran her fingers through her hair, and stretched again, and then she heard someone walking in the room and sat bolt upright.

  It was Frances with a small glass of orange juice. Frances' pretty face was pale and too rouged, but her hair glistened like strands of bronze hit by the sunshine. " 'Morning," she said.

  "Good morning," Dorothy replied. She felt very good indeed. Frances handed her the orange juice and she sipped at it.

  "Hear the news?"

  "News?" said Dorothy.

  "Mrs. Davis."

  "Yes?"

  "She died," Frances said. She tried to look as though she were going to cry about it, but it was an unsuccessful attempt.

  Dorothy sat there for a moment too stunned to speak. "Died?" she repeated, and then she very nearly laughed because it sounded ridiculous. The whole thing was of course absurd.

  "She was murdered," Frances went on quietly, moving about the room.

  Dorothy said: "You must be crazy!"

  "Honest to God!" said Frances. "Was I ever scared when I found out! The house has been in an uproar ever since last night. People going in and out. They had a coroner here. He said it was murder. He was going to have an autopsy."

  "I can't believe it! Autopsy. Why, just yesterday she was—"

  "It sure is a shame," Frances said.

  Dorothy nodded dumbly.

  "There's detectives here, too," Frances continued. "Of course." Dorothy was staring straight ahead of her. Frances was looking out the window. "First time I ever saw Johnny West."

  "Johnny West?"

  Frances turned. "Yeah. You've heard of him, haven't you? Young guy. Boy wonder of the cops. And is he ever good-looking! He belongs to Mamaroneck, but he's got a big reputation all over Westchester for cases he has worked on."

  "Yes," Dorothy said. "Yes, of course." She was impatient with the maid's friendliness and some of this came out in her voice.

  "Well, I'll leave you to get dressed," said Frances. She left the room.

  Dorothy sat there for a moment and did not move. She could not believe the incredible news. All coherence had fled from her mind. When she at last got up she found that she was trembling. She searched nervously for her shoes, and not finding them, remembered that she had put them in the closet the night before. She went to the closet to get them. Her shoes were there, but there was another pair here also: low-heeled walking shoes, a style usually worn by older women. Dorothy remembered that they had not been here the night before, at least she had not seen them, and she was a little perturbed.

  She dressed and paced around the room. She picked up the orange juice and finished it, then she searched for a cigarette. When she found one she lit it and moved over toward the French door. Her room was on the second floor and there was a small balcony out from it which ran completely around the house like a fringe to a dress.

  She finished her cigarette and flicked it out onto the driveway. Turning, she left the room and walked down the hall. Her room was next to the one Rhea Davis had occupied, and passing it, realizing what had happened inside last night—so very close to her—she felt a chill.

  The stairway to the first floor was a very long one, and before descending she looked over from the balcony to see if anyone below was moving about. She saw only the butler.

  She came down and he showed her into the screen-enclosed breakfast room. Clifton and the two men she had met yesterday were already eating. They looked up, smiling politely, but said nothing. Dorothy sat down. When Frances came in, Dorothy said:

  "I'm afraid I can't eat."

  "Don't be a fool," said Clifton.

  "What do you mean?"

  "We didn't ask to come out here. We didn't ask for this mess. And now we can't leave. Not until somebody has been arrested. We mark time like fools when in New York we might be doing something."

  "You mean we can't go back to town today?"

  Clifton laughed bitterly.

  Sam Tulley picked up a napkin in his fat hand and wiped his mouth. "Now that's no way to talk. Good old Rhea only wanted to help you. You wouldn't let her down, would you?"

  "Let her down?" snapped Clifton. "She's dead. How can we let her down?"

  "Well—ah—I mean," said Sam Tulley, "after a fashion of speaking."

  Mike Wiggam's gaunt face was without expression. His black eyes were dull and hard. "And you'll have the magnificent opportunity to see Westchester's own child prodigy perform his police gymnastics. Think of that! To be fr
ont-paged with Detective Johnny West, the Dick Tracy of Westchester County." His husky voice was wet with sarcasm.

  Dorothy said: "Are we all the guests who came?"

  "That's right," Clifton replied. "When we're through we'll get a vaudeville booking as the four fools from Manhattan."

  Frances brought her soft boiled eggs. Dorothy ate, but she was a little horrified. So this was death and the reaction to it. It didn't matter that the world's greatest actress had gone: humans, after all then, thought only of themselves. Yet she realized that these men felt no emotion and she admired Clifton and Mike Wiggam because they made no pretense of it. Clifton, she knew, was a realist to the bone.

  No one. came near them and when breakfast was over they were left to roam the house. Uniformed police guarded the grounds so that there could be no possible escape. This amused Dorothy some. She had heard of such a thing and yet it still was impossible to realize that she was involved in similar circumstances. Time hung heavily on her hands and she went once to the kitchen and talked to the heavy, Irish Mrs. O'Malley, who was the cook. Frances was there, and the butler came in. He was Mrs. O'Malley's husband, a tall, thin man, with a bleak English face, a large nose. These, and Roy, the chauffeur, were the regular servants. The ones that had been hired yesterday to handle the guests had been sent away when they arrived this morning to go to work. Dorothy eventually found conversation with the cook, the butler and the maid a bit heavy for her to handle, and making an excuse took her leave.

  During the afternoon she tried to read, but could not. She heard much talk about Johnny West and gathered that he was somewhat of a sensation as a detective because he was so young, but it was not until after supper that she saw him.

  A uniformed policeman had asked them all to come into the living room, and it was then that she saw him. She was a little disappointed. He was faintly handsome with brown hair; his eyes were brown, too, and alive with a burning brightness; he had a square jaw, and high cheekbones; he was dressed in a neat black suit, and he didn't wear his hat in the house as she had been led to believe detectives did. Betty Davis-Smyth was in the room and also the four servants, Roy, the chauffeur, standing in a corner, his uniform cap in his hand. Mike Wiggam and Sam Tulley sat down on the divan. Clifton walked over and turned a straight chair around, so that the back of it faced him. He straddled this, his hands resting on the back of the reversed chair. Dorothy stood by the table.

  Johnny West glanced at Betty. "Where's Grant?"

  "What?"

  "I said, where's Grant?"

  "Oh," she replied. "There's a man upstairs, and he's attending to some of Mother's effects. He'll be right down."

  Johnny West rubbed his hands together and looked around at everybody. Presently he began to talk. "The police coroner tells me that traces of chromium fluoride poisoning were found in heavy quantity throughout Mrs. Rhea Davis' system. His verdict is—briefly—murder. My job—briefly—is to examine you people and to determine which of you killed her. I hope you will understand that it is a job and nothing more than that; and I wish to apologize at the outset for any future discomfort I may find it necessary to cause anyone during the course of the investigation. Cops are heels. If they weren't they wouldn't get to first base."

  He lit a cigarette and looked around. His face was slightly flushed. Dorothy thought he couldn't be any more than twenty-seven.

  "I have been absent all day," he went on, "because a curious question arose. Mrs. Davis was poisoned day before yesterday—Monday—or late that night. She could either have been poisoned at home before she left for New York, or while she was in New York. She was sick shortly after she arrived home and the poison had been in her system some time then. We don't know the manner in which she absorbed it. But the fact that it could have been given to her in New York made it necessary for me to go personally and see certain people she invited to come here as summer guests. There were five of them in all. Each promised to arrive yesterday; however, none of them did."

  He walked the length of the carpet and turned around.

  "I found," he continued, "that these five people were all young men and women, most of whom worked in experimental theaters, had had no Broadway experience. Beginners. Each had—at some time or other—written Mrs. Davis a letter asking her to come and see them perform. None of them had known her previously. Mrs. Davis' idea—her lawyer tells me—was to coach all of the young talent here during the summer and to back the most promising of them in a play next season."

  Dorothy glanced at Clifton.

  Johnny West put his fingertips together. "Their reason for not coming out here, however, was that on Monday night they received threatening telephone calls telling them to stay away." He turned to Dorothy. "Did you get such a call?"

  She nodded.

  "Yeah," said Clifton. "So did I."

  Johnny West nodded. He pinched out his cigarette. "Mrs. Davis' idea was unique," he continued. "Mr. Mike Wiggam, you were to have been the publicity agent for the beginners she chose; Mr. Tulley, you were to have been their producer. She had already chosen the vehicle, a play called 'Saturday', by you, Mr. Dell, and Miss Noel was to have carried her same part in it. You can imagine the sensation Mrs. Davis would have made on Broadway when your play, cast almost entirely with new people, was presented."

  Clifton said: "My God, and she had to die!"

  West nodded. "Yes. As I say, I received this information from her lawyer. Whatever intentions she might have had are, of course, now void. I am sorry. But the point I am anxious to make is that none of the five people who was invited and did not come had the motive or opportunity to poison Mrs. Davis. So I have cleared them all of suspicion. With the possible exception of Miss Noel, it is necessary to inform you that the rest of you are under suspicion of murder. At least one of you in this room is the murderer of Mrs. Davis. If that person wishes to confess now I shall be happy to listen."

  There was silence, then Mike Wiggam said: "Isn't he cute?"

  "Listen, what about me?" said Clifton, "You make Dorothy an exception, but—"

  West held up his hand, smiling. He spoke softly. "I'm sorry. I admit I'm not acquainted with any possible motive you might have had, at least if I am, I am not at all sure of it. But the fact is that after leaving your Seventeenth Street Theater—you see I have already compiled all of the facts—Mrs. Davis had one last appointment. Roy drove her to—ah—what was the name of the place, Roy?"

  "The Blue Hour Glass on Fifth Avenue," Roy said. The sleek driver lit a cigarette, his dark eyes flickering. Betty Smyth moved over near him. The blonde young woman was very pale.

  "The Blue Hour Glass," West continued. "Roy waited outside in the car. Bring anything back to your mind, Mr. Dell?"

  "I went to the Blue Hour Glass after I left Dorothy on Monday," said Clifton. "Sure. I felt high and I was using the last of what dough I had to celebrate."

  West nodded. "Roy saw you go in. He didn't see anyone else he recognized. When Rhea Davis came out she was alone. You were apparently still inside. Did you see her in there?"

  Clifton leaped to his feet. "What the hell would I be seeing her for?"

  "Perhaps to murder her."

  Clifton threw back his head and laughed nastily. "Why, you two-bit punk," he said. "I thought you were good, that speech of yours and everything. If Mrs. Davis was putting on my play, why in the world should I want to murder her?"

  "You didn't know she was putting it on until I told you just now. Or did you know last night?"

  "Of course I didn't know!"

  West put his hands in his pockets. He was looking at the carpet. "Isn't it true you are in love with a girl named Sherry Moore?"

  Clifton seemed astounded. Then: "It's a damnable lie!" He amended: "I know her."

  "Quite well, too," said West. "You see I checked every angle on every single one of you before I asked to see you. That is, as much as I could." He picked up an old theater program and tossed it across the table to Clifton.

  Clifton
didn't look at it. "I know. Sherry was once in one of Rhea Davis' plays. Got fired. What of it?"

  West met his gaze. "Nothing of it. Mrs. Davis went to the Blue Hour Glass an hour or so after leaving your theater, and shortly afterward you came in. It merely occurred to me that it was very possible her appointment there was with you and I happen to be engaged in collecting second-hand motives where I can find them."

  "That place is just out of the Village, on Fifth," Clifton said. "It was the swankiest place at hand. No reason why I shouldn't go there."

  "No," said West, "no reason." He turned to Sam Tulley. "Mrs. Davis didn't visit you Monday, yet you seemed to have been invited. Since Mr. Dell declines the honor, perhaps it was you that had the appointment with her in the Blue Hour Glass."

  The plump producer shook his head. "No. I was in Stamford all day. I was here to see Mrs. Davis on last Thursday, then I spent the week-end in Connecticut."

  "Did she telephone you there?"

  "Yes. She phoned my office first and they gave her my number."

  West said: "You can prove you were in Stamford the entire week-end and through Monday?"

  Sam Tulley smiled. He lit a cigar. "Very easily," he said.

  Johnny West's lips thinned. He glanced at Mike Wiggam. "You had lunch with Mrs. Davis on Monday. I don't suppose—"

  Mike looked up somberly. "No," he said. "I've never cared much for poisons."

  At that moment Grant came into the room. He was wearing flannels that were too short for him and his thin face was very pale. He looked past everyone, stopped and put his hand to his lip.

  "I say, Roy, my wife's upset, but you don't have to go quite that far to console her."

  Dorothy looked up. Roy had had his arm around Betty. He took it away now, flushing. He twisted his uniform cap. "I—I—she's pretty upset," he said. "I—I'm sorry, sir." His eyes shone dully. He was watching Grant with what looked like contempt.