“I confess to a weakness for crimes committed by professors and love university settings. Perhaps that’s why I’ve got my eye on South Sutton,” Fredericka put in.
“Oh, you mean those stuffy Oxford dons who get all mixed up with keys and times,” Peter said.
“Yes, those, and true cases like the Webster one, the classic example of murder in Harvard University.”
“That’s a beauty,” Thane said enthusiastically. “Do you know it, Mohun? Dr. George Parkman murdered by Professor Webster who owed him money. No one dreamt of suspecting such an eminently respectable old guy but the janitor spied on him, and, oh boy, what did he see? The old professor dissecting the corpse and burning it in the college furnace!”
“Yes, I agree, a beauty. And didn’t Oliver Wendell Holmes act as witness?”
“That’s right. Good old New England, the perfect seat of perfect crimes,” Carey said, laughing.
Margie, who had been listening with paralysed intentness, now said in a very loud voice: “All right then, why don’t you start searching for the body of Catherine Clay who disappeared after lunch, no one knows where, and hasn’t been seen since? Not that anyone would care if she had been done in,” she added bitterly, but in an undertone.
“My dear Margie,” Peter turned to her, “has that woman ever come back from anywhere when she was expected to?”
“No-o. All the same, if you’re wanting to have a murder mystery in South Sutton, it’s a good beginning.”
“Wrong again,” Thane said. “Unless there’s some pressing reason we begin with the body, not with the search for it.”
“Just like the police,” Margie roared. “Perhaps there wouldn’t be any dead bodies if you paid attention to signs and portents.”
Thane, Fredericka, Peter and Connie all turned to look at the girl’s white face, now startlingly blotched with crimson. “Good God, she’s serious,” Thane said, jumping up. “Hey, kid, what are you driving at?” But before anyone could stop her, Margie had jumped to her feet and run off through the open door into the darkness of the summer night.
“Let her go, Carey,” Peter said. “It’s just what her mother calls her ‘theatrics.’ Nothing she likes better than to get a good rise out of an unsuspecting audience. And she’s got a score to settle with Catherine so she’s wishing her dead.”
After a moment the chief of police sat down and went back to his strawberry shortcake. “She’s mad, then,” he muttered a little shamefacedly. And then they talked of other things until the great moment when all the paper plates had been cleared away, a hymn sung, and a few words appropriate to the occasion said by the minister, whose name, Peter whispered to Fredericka, was the Reverend Archibald Williams. Then, at last, the long awaited raffle of the quilt.
“Thirty-five,” the minister’s wife announced in a very loud voice, as she drew the slip from the hat.
“Why—why—that’s one of mine,” Fredericka gasped, “and I—I asked for it because of my birthday. I mean—oh dear—what do I do now?”
“Rise and claim your prize, my dear,” Peter said gravely.
* * * *
And that was how Fredericka happened to be carrying a beautiful patchwork quilt when she unlocked her door half an hour later, and how she happened to go into the kitchen before she went up to bed.
When Peter said good night on the front porch, she asked him to come in, but he refused.
“I’m sorry, Fredericka, but tonight I have a report to make out and will be working late in my office. You can see the beacon light from here no doubt.”
Fredericka swallowed her disappointment and went into the house with her quilt, which she at once took upstairs and spread out on her bed for further inspection. Then she decided that it might look even better hung on a wall, but the only wall not covered with books was the one in the kitchen.
She went to get the steps under the sink and, in the glare of light from the window, she looked out at the hammock. The steps were never used and the quilt lay forgotten for days in the kitchen rocking-chair.
Someone was lying in the hammock, and lying very still.
“I knew we shouldn’t talk about those awful crimes,” Fredericka said out loud to reassure herself. “But I’m just as crazy mad as that child, Margie. It’s no doubt Margie herself sleeping off her fit of adolescent exhibitionism, and giving me a good fright, to boot.”
Her words, spoken to the empty room, sounded strange in the silence and their very primness reminded Fredericka that she was herself and not Harriet Vane. As she opened the back door and stepped out onto the porch, a cricket shrilled beside her and she stopped still in terror. Then, slowly, she walked around the path to the hammock.
For a full moment she stared at the body of Catherine Clay. There was no mistake possible now. One hand dangled helplessly to the ground and the face staring up into the light from the kitchen window was distorted with pain or anger—but rigid and still.
Fredericka put one hand to her mouth to stifle the scream that rose in her throat, and forced herself to put the other down to touch the awful face. Then she drew it away quickly and turned to run blindly, instinctively, in the direction of the campus and the beacon light that Peter had promised her would be there.
Chapter 4
Fredericka pounded on the thin door of the prefabricated hut. The sound echoed like hollow drum beats in the silent night.
“Good God!” Peter said opening the door quickly. “No need to wake the dead. Who the devil is it?”
“It’s me, Peter. Oh, Peter, Peter she is dead. Margie must be a witch.”
“Fredericka, it’s you. What are you talking about?” Then, seeing her white face, he grasped her arm and found that she was trembling. “Here, come in and tell me what’s the matter. There can’t really be anything wrong, Fredericka. You’re having a nightmare because we talked too much nonsense.”
“No. No. Peter, I can’t come in. You must come back with me. It’s—it’s Catherine Clay. She’s dead. There—at the bookshop. In my hammock, in my yard.” Fredericka forced herself to say the words slowly and distinctly and, at last, Peter realized their meaning.
“All right, Fredericka, I believe you if I must, but first, before I make a move to come with you, I’m going to give you a bracer.”
He led her into the office and opened a drawer of his desk to take out a small silver flask. Then, from a cupboard, he produced a tumbler and poured out a stiff drink. “Brandy. Do you good. Here, don’t drink it too fast.”
Fredericka choked, looked up and tried to smile, then gulped the rest like an obedient child taking a dose of medicine.
When the brandy had worked its magic and she felt suddenly better, she stared up at Peter whose face looked owl-like in the light from the green-shaded lamp on his desk. “Thanks,” she said, and then: “I’m all right now. Please come. I—I don’t like leaving her alone there.”
“If she’s dead, my dear Fredericka, five minutes can’t make much difference,” he reminded her gently.
“I know, but—”
Afterwards both Peter and Fredericka were to wonder at her urgent desire to return at once to the bookshop. Even then some instinct must have warned her that death had not been natural. Yes, even then—
“But what?” Peter asked sharply.
“Oh, I don’t know. I just feel we ought to be there.”
“All