“Yes. But I forgot—”
Susan’s eyes narrowed. “You forgot what, Mary?”
“Nothing.”
“Really, Mary, one would think you didn’t trust me. What did you forget?”
Mary turned her head away. “Just the phone call.”
“What phone call?”
“Ask Jennie.” She was breathing hard, pressing a hand to her heart as if it hurt her.
Susan got off the bed and stood up. “I think you should have a sedative, Mary dear. I really do. I’ll go and get—”
“No! You’re like the rest of them. You want to put me to sleep so I won’t bother you, so I won’t talk.”
“What rest of them? Who wants to put you to sleep, Mary?” She bent over the bed and her voice sank to a soft whisper. “Who wants to put you to sleep, Mary?”
“They want me to think that Tom murdered her and ran away. They don’t want me to talk. They’re afraid of me.”
“Who are they, Mary?”
The whisper spun round and round the room as if it could not get out...
“Yes, there was a phone call,” Jennie told Prye half an hour later. “I was in the kitchen making Mrs. Little’s tea and the phone rang in the sitting room and Mr. Little answered it.”
“Did you hear what he was talking about?” Prye said. “Think, Jennie.”
Jennie looked up at him unhappily, and then suddenly her face brightened. “He was talking about not knowing what someone was talking about.”
Prye groaned inaudibly. “Are you sure the similarity of phrase isn’t confusing you?”
“I heard him say that he didn’t know what someone was talking about,” Jennie repeated. “I even remember the time. It was six-fifteen.”
“And what did you do after you prepared Mrs. Little’s tea?”
“I took it up to her room and sat with her until she’d finished. Sometimes she asks me to have a cup of tea with her just for the sake of company. He was never any company for her. Then I went down again and made his dinner, and then I went back upstairs.”
“What did Mr. Little do after dinner?”
“Sat in the front room reading.”
“Did you notice anything out of the ordinary about his actions?”
“Well—” Jennie hesitated and then plunged in. “Mr. Little could be quite nice when he wanted to, but he never wasted any of his niceness on me. So I just let him alone. He was grouchy last night.”
“You sat in Mrs. Little’s room all evening?”
“Yes, sir. I started to work on my afghan but I was tired and I dozed off. But that was all right because Mrs. Little was dozing, too.”
“You went to sleep before or after the storm?”
“It must have been before. When Mrs. Little woke me up it was nearly ten o’clock and the storm was real bad then. Mrs. Little was scared and sent me downstairs to get him. But he was gone just as if the spirits had got him, like that Chinaman says.”
“Did the spirits take his hat and coat, too?” Prye asked gravely.
Jennie went out of the room and came back in a few minutes with the news that the spirits had thoughtfully taken along Tom’s hat and coat and a pair of rubbers.
“I want to look at Mr. Little’s room,” Prye said. “I’ll go up alone.”
Tom’s bedroom adjoined Mary’s. Prye went in quietly and closed the door behind him. There was no evidence that Tom had done any packing. The room was neat, the clothes hung up carefully in the closet. Prye went over to the dresser and pulled out a drawer. It shrieked.
“Who’s there?” Mary called out.
Prye stood still.
“Who’s there?” she called, and this time there was panic in her voice.
Prye said, “Damn!” and went out into the hall.
“It’s Dr. Prye, Mrs. Little. I was just—”
“What are you doing in Tom’s room?”
“Inspector White sent me over to see if any of your husband’s clothes were missing.”
“Sent you over!” Mary said bitterly. “It’s not important enough for him to come himself.”
“He’s busy organizing a search of the woods,” Prye was able to say truthfully. “Do you mind if I go on with my job?”
There was no reply. He went back into Tom’s room. Tom was a careful man. His drawers were all in order, and even his correspondence had been arranged in three piles in his writing desk: letters from friends, bills, and business matters. None of the envelopes of the personal letters bore feminine handwriting.
Prye walked slowly toward the door, vaguely dissatisfied. He turned his head and let his eyes wander once more around the room, over the dresser, the cedar chest, the desk, the bed with its covers turned down. There was nothing out of place. Then he looked down and saw on the rug a tiny shaft of green light which should not have been there.
It lay on the ledge of the window, a large square emerald ring flanked with diamonds that caught the sun. It seemed as if someone had put it down casually and forgotten about it. Prye covered it with his handkerchief and placed it in his coat pocket.
In five minutes he was back in his own cottage. With the aid of two mirrors he unwound the bandages from his head and replaced them with a pad of absorbent cotton and several strips of adhesive. Then he jammed a hat over his head and surveyed himself. The effect was not pretty because his ears bent a little; but at least the bandages were invisible.
“If I’m lucky,” he said aloud, “it will be a he, or else a she who won’t expect me to take my hat off.”
He wasn’t lucky. The middle-aged spinster in charge of the switchboard at the telephone exchange in Clayton palpably expected him to remove his hat and eyed him none too cordially as he tugged at the brim. It came off with a rush accompanied by a piece of adhesive and a quantity of Prye’s hair.
Prye pointed to the hair. “A toupee,” he said. “Dam thing won’t stay on.”
“Accounts payable at the desk,” she told Prye severely. Then she doffed her earphones, patted her hair, and appeared behind the desk.
“Jekyll and Hyde,” Prye murmured.
“Name, please,” she said, keeping her eyes fixed glassily on the switchboard.
“Who? Me?” Prye said.
“Of course you,” she said to the switchboard.
“Prye. Dr. Prye. But my bill isn’t due yet. As a matter of fact, I just dropped in to get an idea of how a switchboard works. Very interesting, isn’t it?”
“Not if you have to do it,” she replied coldly.
“No. I can see that.”
A red light glowed on the board and in an instant she had replaced her earphones and was asking in a lilting voice which bore no resemblance to her own: “Number, please?”
She came back behind the desk.
“It’s quite simple, you see,” she informed him.
“I’m afraid I’d feel an awful temptation to listen in on calls,” Prye confessed. “Or else I’d get tangled up in the wires and strangle myself.”
Prye led the laughing but she joined in. When she had finished she regarded him with condescending benevolence. “I daresay it’s possible.”
“You don’t mean to tell me you manage the exchange all by yourself?” Prye said.
“From seven to seven. Another girl comes on at night.”
“Terrible business, this murder out at the Point,” Prye said casually.
She froze again, her mouth hard and tight as if she had swallowed some liquid air.
“It’s a pity that telephone operators aren’t permitted to listen in on calls,” Prye went on. “They could probably help the police a great deal. Now take this business out at the Point. Mr. Little received a phone call last night around six o’clock. If we could verify what was said over the line perhaps we could find Mr. Little.”