Now what?
“How you going to get in?”
“Oh, I’ll manage,” Jessie said quickly. How, she had no idea.
“Hold it.” Peterson went into the gatehouse. In a moment he was back, flourishing a key. “Stallings always leaves the key with me in case Mr. Humffrey should show up while he’s off the Island. Need any help, Miss Sherwood?” he shouted after her gallantly.
“No, thanks,” Jessie shouted back, clutching the key.
She felt rather bourbonish herself as she drove up the Nair Island road.
Stallings had left the nightlight burning over the service entrance. Jessie parked in the driveway near it, turned off her ignition and lights, and jumped out.
Her feet crunched loudly on the gravel, and Jessie hesitated, her skin itching. What am I so nervous about? she thought. Nobody can hear me.
Still, she found herself putting her feet down as if she were in a bog.
She unlocked the service door and slipped thankfully into the Humffrey house.
But with her back against the door, thankfulness melted away.
She had never seen such dark darkness.
This is what comes of being an honest woman, she thought. Nobody here, nobody on the Island but Peterson, whose blessing I have, and yet... It seemed to her the house was full of furtive noises. As if the wood and plaster were breathing.
Remember Michael, she told herself rigidly. Remember that little dead body. She filled her lungs with air, deliberately, then let the air out.
Immediately the house became a house, the darkness friendly.
Jessie pushed away from the door and stepped confidently forward. Her hand touched the basement door. She opened it, felt for the switch, found it, and snapped it on.
The basement sprang at her.
She ran down the stairs. The steps were cushioned and carpeted and her descent was soundless.
At the bottom she paused to look around.
She knew where the outlet of the nursery chute was. She could see it from where she stood, with the big canvas laundry basket still in place under the vent. She had always done the baby’s diapers and undershirts herself, refusing to allow Mrs. Humffrey to employ a diaper service.
“I like to know what my babies’ diapers are washed in,” she had said to Mrs. Humffrey. “I’ve seen too many raw little bottoms.”
Funny the things you thought about when... Jessie forced herself to think about the problem at hand.
Sadie Smith had mentioned a “plumber’s snake.” Jessie had only the vaguest notion of what a plumber’s snake might be. She supposed it was some device for getting into clogged pipes and things that might choke up and be hard to clean. Where would such a thing be kept? Then she recalled that one of the basement walls was covered with shelving for the storage of tools, light bulbs, and odds and ends of housewares and hardware. The snake would probably be there. Wasn’t it at the far end of the basement, behind the oil burner?
Jessie walked past the set tubs where Mrs. Smith had done the hand washing, past the washing machine and dryer, around the burner...
There it was.
She found the snake on the bottom shelf among some wrenches, pipe elbows, and other plumbing accessories. It was unmistakable, a large coil of metal cable with a loopy sort of head on it.
She took the snake over to the vent of the nursery chute, set the canvas basket to one side, inserted the head of the cable in the opening, and pushed. As she unwound the snake, she kept pushing upward. The cable made a raspy, rattly sound going up. She kept wiggling it, shaking it, making it go from side to side.
It went up, up, up. Finally it banged against something far overhead, refused to go further. It had obviously struck the door of the chute in the nursery.
And nothing had come down.
Jessie sat down on the basement floor and laughed.
Exit Jessie Sherwood, Female Sleuth.
The only thing to do was return the snake to the shelf, turn off the light, get into her car, and go back where she belonged.
Still seated on the floor under the vent, Jessie began to coil the cable. It came down, scraping, as she rewound it. The head appeared.
And something crumpled and white appeared with it and dropped into her lap.
The material was batiste. It had a lace edging. Honiton lace.
With trembling fingers Jessie took the pillowslip by two corners and held it up.
The imprint of a dirty right hand showed plainly just off the center of the square.
“Why, I’ve done it,” Jessie said aloud in an amazed voice. “I’ve found it.”
A horribly familiar voice behind her replied, “So you have, Miss Sherwood.”
Jessie’s head screwed around like a doll’s.
Her eyeballs froze.
Alton K. Humffrey was standing at the foot of the basement stairs.
In his right hand there was a gun, and the gun was aimed at her heart.
The eye of the gun came steadily nearer, growing bigger and bigger.
Richard, Jessie thought. Richard.
“First, Miss Sherwood,” the horrible voice said, “I’ll relieve you of this.”
She felt the pillowslip jerked out of her hand. From the corner of her paralyzed eye she saw his left hand crumple it, stuff it into his pocket.
The gun receded.
Not far.
“You’re frightened, Miss Sherwood. I sympathize. But you have only yourself to blame. Not a particularly consoling last thought, I suppose. Believe me, I dislike this almost as much as you do. But what recourse have you left me?”
Jessie almost said, None. But she knew that if she opened her mouth, nothing would come out but a chatter of teeth.
Richard, Richard. You don’t even know where I am. Not you, not Chief Pearl, not anybody but Charlie Peterson, and what good is he? Alton Humffrey has seen to that, or he wouldn’t be here pointing a gun. You’re going to die alone, Jessie, like an idiot, sitting on a basement floor in an empty house on an empty island.
Die.
The voice was saying, without bite or pinch, “You must see that I have no choice. You’ve found the slip, you’ve examined it. You’re probably incorruptible. In any case, you’re too close to that busybody Queen. So I must kill you, Miss Sherwood. I must.”
This isn’t happening, Jessie thought. It’s just — not — happening.
“Not that the prospect pleases. I’m not a compulsive murderer. It’s easier to commit murder than one would think, I’ve found, but it isn’t pleasant. Your death is even dangerous to me. Peterson knows you’re here. I could shoot you as as intruder, saying that I fired before I realized who you were, but Peterson’s told me you were here. By the same token, he also knows I’m here. So I’m forced to take a great risk.”
I’m going to wake up any second...
“When you disappear, suspicion will naturally fall on me. After I row your body out and sink it in deep water, I shall have to concoct a story. They won’t believe the story, of course, no matter how plausible it is. But without a body, with no evidence of a crime, what can they do, after all? I think I’ll come out of it all right. This is a soundproof room, Miss Sherwood, and — forgive me — I shall be very careful about removing all traces afterward.”
It’s silly. He’s just trying to scare me. Nobody could talk as calmly as this and mean to take a human life. Nobody.
Richard, Richard.
“I still don’t understand what brought you here tonight.” The millionaire’s voice this time was slightly flavored with petulance. “I certainly had no idea I was going to run into anyone. I came for the very purpose you accomplished, to check the nursery chute. That farce in Chief Pearl’s office — before Queen produced the forgery — set me to wondering how they could possibly have found the pillowslip. And that reminded me of the obstruction in the chute when it was installed. How did you learn about that, Miss Sherwood?” Jessie stirred, and he said sharply, “Don’t move, please.”