“His innocence — or guilt,” Rollins said.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t help you.” Vallancourt rose, and Rollins took the hint with a flattening of his lips and a glitter in his restless eyes. He rose, too.
“It was kind of you to give me so much of your valuable time, Mr. Vallancourt.” The insolence again. Or frustration. Perhaps a little of both, Vallancourt thought.
After Rollins was gone, he found it hard to return to work. His thoughts kept returning to Keith. Having met the father, he felt a sympathy for the son. But he was not reassured. Knowing why the young lion was hungry did not make his appetite less dangerous.
Vallancourt was on the point of driving off the next morning when Mrs. Ledbetter called to him with unaccustomed shrillness.
He stopped the car and hurried back into the house.
“It’s Miss Ferguson, Mr. Vallancourt. I’ve never heard her so upset. She says it’s very urgent.”
He crossed the high, vaulted entry hall. Charles was plugging in a phone, extending it.
“Dorcas?”
“Thank God! John...” Her voice was gurgly, as if she had been sobbing. “I must see you.”
Keith... rape-murder... The words sprang into his head.
“Dorcas, what’s the matter? What’s happened?”
“I can’t tell you... not over the phone. Can you... I hate to break in on you this way—”
“I’ll be right over,” he said.
She made a choked sound of gratitude and the line went dead.
Vallancourt swung into the Ferguson driveway twenty minutes later. The Norman lines of the house wheeled into view.
Two cars were parked at one side of the driveway ahead of him — a small open sports car, and behind it a blue sedan.
The door of the sedan on the driver’s side was open. Howard Conway had apparently just got out and gone forward to look into the sports car. He turned toward the Continental as Vallancourt brought it to a nose-dipping stop.
Vallancourt got out quickly and moved to the fleshy younger man.
“I just got a call from Dorcas, Howard—”
“So did I. Just minutes ago. What’s up, John?”
“I don’t know.” He glanced at the sports car. “Keith’s?”
Conway nodded.
They hurried across the strip of lawn between the driveway and the house.
“Dorcas?” Conway called when they were inside. He glanced at Vallancourt, moved a few steps further. And then a tremendous shock rippled over Conway’s frame. All the color left his face.
“God Almighty!”
Vallancourt rushed into the living room where Dorcas lay, and dropped beside her. His heart seemed to dissolve, leaving a cold cavity in his chest.
He knew instantly that Dorcas Ferguson was dead. The black, silver-stranded hair was fanned across her Indian face, wisps of it sticking to her unseeing eyeballs. Her lower jaw hung to the limits of it hinges, making an ugly red and black hole of the once-warm, generous mouth.
From the odd, twisted position of her head, Vallancourt raised his eyes slowly. Up the leg of the heavy table. To the edge of the table where the finish was marred by a smear of blood and a few hairs. He guessed what the table’s edge had done to the base of her skull. He did not care for a closer look.
He was aware of Howard Conway standing nearby, grasping the back of a chair. He rose, started toward Conway... and out of the corner of his eyes saw a drapery move.
Vallancourt lunged, ripping the drapery aside.
It was Keith Rollins.
Vallancourt saw the blow coming and rolled with the punch, taking it high on his cheek. His brain jarred, his left knee buckled slightly. Then he was all right. With his right foot he thrust himself forward, ducking under Keith’s next frantic blow. His fingers touched the boy’s arm. Keith screamed softly and lashed out with his foot. Vallancourt slid to one side, and Keith had an instant in which to turn. He covered his face and head with his arms and plunged through the tall window in a shower of glass.
“Look at him! Look at him!” Conway shouted senselessly.
Keith struck grass, tripped, rolled, bounced to his feet, tore his way through shrubbery. He did not pause to look back, but darted toward his sports car.
Nearer to the front door, Conway was outside before Vallancourt. The sports car was fishtailing around the bend in the driveway. The breeze carried the pungency of scorched rubber back to them.
“Call the police, John,” Conway shouted as he ran. “Tell ’em to head him off!”
Conway threw himself in his car, fumbled with the ignition, shouted a four-letter word, and got the car started. The sedan shot away in pursuit.
Vallancourt phoned the police.
Dorcas Ferguson is dead. The most important woman in this end of the state has been murdered.
He could see the headlines, the editorials. The shortwave police band would soon be chanting the old litany that was always new:
All cars... Wanted on suspicion of murder, Keith Rollins... age twenty-two. Husky build. Black hair. Dark blue eyes. Driving MG, late model, license BF-3850. Fleeing estate of Dorcas Ferguson, victim. Approach with caution. Suspect was recently questioned in connection with a Florida rape-murder...
Vallancourt returned to the front door, watching the driveway. He made a pad of his handkerchief and applied it to the bruise Keith had left, only partially aware of the throb in his cheekbone. In these scant remaining moments of quiet, the fact of Dorcas’s death was a vaster pain. Dorcas dead. Dorcas dead.
Grief was acid in his throat.
He heard the sound of an approaching car, and looked up. It was Ivy Conway’s compact sedan.
She parked sloppily, leaving the driveway barely passable.
“Hi,” she said wanly. She looked tired. She manufactured a grin, touching her temple. “Long evening at the country club bar,” she confessed. “Why do I always say never again?”
She started toward the front steps, the breeze feathering the gossamer brown hair about her small face. “What’s wrong with you, John? Don’t tell me you tied one on, too! This I would have to see.” She laughed.
Vallancourt touched her arm. “Before you go inside, Ivy...”
“Whatever is the matter with you?”
“A dreadful thing has happened.”
“Happened?” Then she said quickly, “Not to Dorcas!”
“I’m afraid so.”
They had stopped midway up the front steps. She jerked her head toward the house.
From the distance came the approaching wail of a police siren.
Very slowly and carefully, Ivy turned.
“An ambulance, John?”
“No,” he said gently.
“Then — police?”
“Yes.”
“Dorcas... the police?”
She darted into the house. She was at the edge of the living room when Vallancourt caught her. She looked into the room, struck herself in the temple, and began to scream.
5
During the police preliminaries Ivy Ferguson Conway crouched in a chair and refused to move, like a child waking in the dark after a nightmare.
Her husband’s voice mingled finally with that of the uniformed policeman on duty in the foyer. Conway came in, shaking his head. “Lost him, John. He must have slipped the MG through that parking area at the shopping center. When I tumbled to it and backtracked, there was no sign of him.”
Vallancourt tilted his head in Ivy’s direction. Conway looked startled. He crossed the room, stooped over her, spoke quietly. Some of the blankness left her eyes. She moaned suddenly, grabbed her husband about the neck, and began to sob. He picked her up, glanced at a policeman, got a nod, and carried Ivy out of the room.
A lanky, sweating detective in a rumpled gray suit followed the Conways out. Vallancourt knew him; his name was Woody Britt.