The room, Sarah’s room, was dim. It was dusk out. Rain fell steadily beyond the single window and objects loomed vaguely in reflected light from the hall—the old sofa on which Sarah used to lie, a cashmere shawl thrown over her, the desk at which she had sat, her tiny feet on a footstool. She had been inordinately proud of her feet. The very air seemed stale and impregnated with the odor of Sarah herself, an odor compounded of the peppermint drops she used to suck, camphor, heliotrope and age—a scent thrown off by the failing body (she had always been delicate) that had resisted death so fiercely.
Rain drummed at the dark panes, behind their stiff lace curtains, pattered unevenly on the flagstones in the court below. The flower petals littered the carpet in front of the Baltimore heater whitely. The satin ribbon that tied the festive little box trailed across the blotter on the desk. Julie stared. The box was no longer there.
She looked for it, casually at first, and then with an increasing sense of urgency. It wasn’t anywhere in the study. At the end of her brief and futile search she stood still in the middle of the floor, coldness striking hard between her shoulder blades. The removal of so innocuous an object couldn’t and shouldn’t have meant anything to Julie then. But it did. Shakily and a little blindly, afraid but not knowing what it was she feared, she turned and fled out of the room in the direction of lights and people. She slammed the door behind her as she went. It made a loud noise.
Chapter Two
A STRANGE CROP OF FUNERALS
When Julie got to the Biltmore at half-past six that evening Brian was waiting for her. She had never been so glad to see him before. He would have been at Mouse’s wedding, only that he had to fly to Washington and his plane back to New York wasn’t due until five forty-five. He had called her from the airport before leaving. She had been afraid he would be late on account of the weather, but he wasn’t. He was standing near the head of the main staircase when she crossed the pavement where the rain was freezing as it fell, and pushed her way through the revolving doors.
The very sight of him was warming. Tall and loosely built, his lean, tanned face bore the intangible marks of intellect and humor. The introspective quality of his gray-green eyes set widely under a thoughtful forehead was balanced by the decision of his lightly squared jaw and his firm-lipped mouth.
More than one pair of eyes turned interestedly on the meeting of the tall man with a briefcase under his arm and the slender dark girl in furs, her small vivid face glowing beneath a tiny silver fox tricorn.
“Hello, honey,” Brian said, taking her arm. “Well, how did it go off?”
When he smiled at her like that, it made Julie feel safe and happy. She needed to feel safe; she had been more badly shaken than she had realized. “Wait,” she said rather breathlessly, “wait until I tell you.”
Ensconced in a niche in the lounge strewn with little tables and sofas and chairs and low lamps, with birds in cages swinging between the archways and filling the air with their soft soprano twittering, a vermouth in front of her and Brian sipping a Martini, Julie did tell him. Brian laughed at her—at first, anyhow.
“Bill Conroy went to the house, saw Mouse, gave her flowers and Mouse was upset—so what?”
“The little box that had the flowers in it was gone, darling. Why should anyone take it?”
“A servant—”
Julie shook her head. “I asked. Besides, if one of the caterer’s men or Mrs. Racker removed the box, why leave the flowers messing up the floor?”
“Was there anything in the box besides flowers?”
“Nothing that we could see, except the torn card.”
“Did you ask Frances about it?”
Julie said she hadn’t had a chance as Frances had had to go on to a cocktail party.
Brian said, “Well, if you’d like my opinion I think you’re making a mountain out of a molehill.”
Julie tried to tell herself that he was right, and presently they forgot about Mouse and Joe Westing and began to talk about the most engrossing topic in the world, themselves.
Brian was married, but he and his wife had been separated for years. Julie knew nothing concerning the first Mrs. Moore, except that he had been unhappy with her and that she had left home. He had never bothered about getting a divorce until he and Julie met, when he had started. proceedings in Connecticut, on the grounds of desertion. As soon as the decree was granted they were going to be married, quietly and without fanfare. He had a house in New York, a tiny house in a backwater off Morton Street that had belonged to his father, but he spent most of his time at his place at Hoydens Hill near that of Frances and Sam Ashe, so there had been no difficulty about establishing residence. Julie had a cottage on the Hill too. She had taken it the previous summer and had kept it on because she loved the place. Free-lance fashion illustration plus a small income let her live anywhere she wanted to. Brian’s divorce would become final in nine days, and on the morning of the tenth day they were going to be married.
Until his departure for Washington they had kept the news strictly to themselves. It was Brian’s idea. He had said, “It’s nobody’s business but our own, sweet—let’s not tell anyone until it’s an accomplished fact. You know what people are. They’d be all over us, and we’ve both got work to do.” Julie hadn’t minded. In a way it had been rather fun. She had let the cat out of the bag inadvertently to Frances that morning. She told Brian about it and he said resignedly, “Well, I suppose they’d have to know soon, anyhow.”
If Julie hadn’t been occupied with another train of thought she might have weighed his answer more carefully. But recollections of Mouse had erupted again—Mouse and Rosetta. She said, frowning at the white cap of a chef bent over a neighboring table, “That was funny, Brian.”
The chef reached them and Brian took two sausages, handing Julie one. “What was funny?”
Julie ate the sausage absently as she felt her way through imponderables, trying for exactness. “Frances,” she said slowly, “was doing the, mantelpiece in the living-room when I told her about us. She turned, and her elbow hit the clock and it fell and the glass broke. I was beside the door. There was a broom and a dustpan in the hall. I opened the door. Mouse was standing outside. She looked—queer. Not as if she’d just come downstairs but as if—I know it sounds peculiar—she’d been there for some time. The worst of it was that Rosetta was watching her. She was halfway up the stairs and she ran up the rest of the way and out of sight the moment I opened the door.”
Brian frowned. “You mean that Mouse was listening to you and Frances—deliberately?”
“That was the impression I got but, oh, it’s impossible.”
“Well, let’s hope she didn’t suffer the common fate of eavesdroppers.”
“I don’t know,” Julie said unhappily. “Frances and I were talking about Mouse and Joe Westing earlier, and you know how Frances talks. It doesn’t mean anything, but Mouse isn’t used to it. Frances thought that Mouse and Joe both knew about Sarah’s will and that was why they didn’t marry sooner.”
“Frances is crazy,” Brian said with decision. “Mouse didn’t know. Or Joe Westing either. I was there when the will was read. Mouse expected Sarah to leave her something; she never expected to get the entire estate. She was knocked into a cocked hat.”
Julie gave a little sigh of relief. It had hurt her to think of Mouse as an eavesdropper. She wasn’t small or underhanded or curious. If anything, she was too direct and open and simple. Brian ought to know. He had been in Sarah’s confidence. The son of the man she would have married if she hadn’t sacrificed herself for her father, he was one of her executors. She was very fond of him and if anything had happened to Mouse, if she had died or run off with Bill Conroy, for instance, Brian would have