Hahroogarh!
Down the drive, out through the wrought-iron cemetery gates, past the church, the green in front, just as the Center Street trolley stops to let off a passenger.
Look out!
“Honest ta Pete, ya think ya own the world, kid? Lookit what ya did ta my stocking!”
“—— on you, Roundheels, keep your eyes open.”
Hahroogahr!
In spite of the abundance of signs admonishing “Handle at Own Risk,” when it came to mouthed peashooters, smudged comic books, or pocketed notions, the proprietress of the Miss Josceline-Marie Gift and Novelty Shoppe was Argus-eyed. From a stool strategically placed behind her cash register near the door, the lady was able to survey her domain while doing a brisk cash-and-carry business, incidentally blotting up whatever gossip chanced to be spilled across her counter.
This afternoon she was having a busy time of it, in spite of the humidity. Such a commotion. Customers coming and going, every which way, quick as a wink—she scarcely had time to powder her nose. Several folks were browsing in the back when a cluster of bells announced further trade. Patting a sea of Jo-Curled waves drying under a net, Miss Josceline-Marie contrived a little face with which to greet her customer.
“Afternoon, Rose. Ohm’gosh, ent that a cute blouse.” Miss Josceline-Marie had a face which was round and flat, like a dish, and which seemed to have little pockets in its cheeks, like a chipmunk, where she stored things. She was an enthusiastic lady; you could tell she meant practically every word she spoke.
“Honest ta Pete!” her customer exclaimed, limping in on her high heels and dabbing with a wet thumb at a stocking run. “The kids taday!”
“S’matter?”
Rose Halligan brandished her thumb over her shoulder. “Why, I was gettin’ offa the streetcar just now and some kid darn near run me down on his bike. Look what he done to my stocking. So I says to him, watch where yer goin’ and he says ta me, oh, what he says ta me—”
“Whadde say?”
Though Miss Josceline-Marie would have been shocked to hear, Rose did not care to enlighten her further. “Got any Belle Shar-meers in?”
“Hosiery, table two, just help yourself m’dear.” At no pains to disturb herself, Miss Josceline-Marie pointed out the stocking selection.
“Got Sahara?”
“Just look, m’dear, but don’t mess ’em all up!” she shrilled querulously as Rose rummaged.
“Honest honey, it’s like a needle in a haystack here. You must be all outta Sahara.”
“Take Sand, then. Practically the same—Sand, Sahara,” said the other lady, making a plausible connection.
“Welp, they’ll just have to do. I’m in a herry.” She wobbled to the counter and put her nose in her pocketbook, looking for money, while Miss Josceline-Marie silently remarked how the roots of her customer’s hair betrayed the sincerity of its color.
“Got a marvelous new thing in,” she said, making change. “Helena Rubinstein’s just come out with a new type touch-up for blondes. You might like to give it a try. Not working today?”
“No, my day off. I ben ta the pitchers.”
Miss Josceline-Marie’s look plainly said Poor You. “Well, you sure missed all the excitement, didn’t you?”
“What excitement? Where?”
“Up on the Hill. Awful thing—can’t imagine it—must have been just dreadful—the poor creature—Harold Foley’ll have his work cut out for him—”
Rose was trying to get any one of several words in edgewise. “Who—? What—? When—?”
“—just the most ghastly thing this town’s seen in a spell, let me tell you. Sixty, seventy-five, one dollar.” Miss Josceline-Marie moistened her fingertip with the end of her tongue to slip out a paper bag and said, sotto voce, “Listen, m’love, you want to hear something’ll freeze your blood in your very veins?”
“Sure.” Rose dug Chiclets from her bag.
“Oh, Winnie,” Miss Josceline-Marie caroled to the back of the store.
Winnie, who had been selecting apron fabric from the remnant table, approached the counter. “Winnie, this is Rose, Rose Halligan. Tell her what you told me about—you know—next door.”
Without preamble Winnie recounted what she had already told Miss Josceline-Marie, how this morning Mr. Pretty the vegetable man had noticed the smell over at Mrs. Rowe’s, how, later this afternoon, his route finished, he had returned and tried to look in the back windows, then the front, then the side where there was a space between the closed portières . . . how he had come rushing across and used the telephone, how Winnie and Ada had gone back with him, and—
“—and there she was,” Miss Josceline-Marie interrupted at this crucial point, “in the parlor. Terrible way to die.”
Rose turned to the horse’s mouth. “Whaddja see?”
“She was sittin’ right there in her rocking chair—” Winnie said.
“Her favorite,” Miss Josceline-Marie put in.
“—she’d had a heart attack.”
“Dead as a doornail. Must of been a week or more.”
“Eek,” said Rose, chewing. “Go on.”
“Well—”
“Face all purple, mouth wide open, body stiff as taffy,” said Miss Josceline-Marie, troubling to paint a little picture for Rose. “And the smell. Why, a body could die of it—well, you know what I mean.”
Winnie agreed. She and Ada had gotten the windows open while waiting for the constable, who put a sheet over Mrs. Rowe and called Mr. Foley.
“And she looked natural as life, didn’t she, Winnie?” Miss Josceline-Marie plowed on, “setting there with spider webs spun right across her lap.”
“Spiders!” Rose eeked again.
“Spiders,” confirmed Winnie.
“Spiders,” came Miss Josceline-Marie’s echo, her round cheeks wobbling with indignation.
“Ooh, I’m getting the creepy-crawlies,” Rose said, rubbing away goosepimples.
“It’s too too grisly to speak of,” Miss Josceline-Marie said. “Now, please, let’s talk about something pleasant. Oh Winnie, were you wanting that end of cotton?” Applying a measuring tape to it and squinting to see. “Two and a half yards, m’dear, not enough for a dress, I’m afraid. An apron? Oh, plenty for that! ’Bye, Rose.”
Practically gasping, Rose, who had spied Esther from the Maison de Beauté, lurched out the door to share her exciting news and, while Miss Josceline-Marie bagged Winnie’s remnant of print, back in the corner at the magazine rack, a little face, gray eyes bright under the gable-shaped brows, a purloined Chinese mustache tucked in one pocket, remained quiet as a mouse.
It was gone.
Discovering that the Sermon on the Mount had given place to the Marriage Feast at Cana, Niles removed the Chautauqua scroll spindle and searched behind it. The Prince Albert tin was gone! He looked everywhere, on top of things, under things, behind things. Went on, tearing both beds apart and remaking them, ransacking the drawers, feeling behind books. Under the beds, only dust kittens. In the chests, nothing. Yes—hold it—hidden there in the secret compartment in Holland’s chest—wait a minute! The glasses—the thick-lensed, steel-rimmed glasses of Russell—the missing glasses!
He went to the window to catch his breath. Funny things were happening. Ada, cleaning up over at the Rowe house all afternoon since Mr. Pretty’s unhappy discovery, had returned in a highly agitated state—naturally enough—except that there was more to it than that, more than the mere, sad fact of Mrs. Rowe’s death. What had happened over there to distress Ada so? Why did she keep scooping the kitchen with looks, biting her lip in puzzlement, trying to fit pieces together?
It was very strange.
And then, after Ada had gone back to the Rowe house to see to some other things, Winnie, leaving for her sister’s, dropped her bombshell. Mother, she said, had mentioned earlier something about having a look around the boys’ room. Cripes! Niles had fled, raced up the back stairs and . . .
. . . it was gone
!
Worried, he looked out over the barn to the meadow, letting his eye ramble the night. Though the air was still warm, he felt chilled, and his forehead, the back of his neck were damp. Outside, no breeze stirred. Skeins of mist lay along the river. Across the water lights danced in the blur, milky globes of unlikely brilliance, slowly floating up through the blackness like bubbles. Leaning against the horse-chestnut tree, Holland’s bike sparkled in the moonlight. Along the drive Fafner and Thor were rigidly unstirring, aloof. There was no movement at all—except . . .
Apprehensively Niles drew his chest closer to the sill, eyes straining to see. Caught a slight movement, just there, under the trees, a figure sprawled out upon the thatch of needles by the well . . . the movement of a tightly closed fist, beating at the cement slab.
Now, suddenly, he knew where the tobacco tin was.
“Mother?”
She was half-prostrate, hair across her face, looking up over her shoulder at him as though he were an intruder, her fingers madly scrabbling at the slab of cement.
“Mother!” Alarmed, he ran forward. He took her hands and drew her to her feet. She whimpered and he could see blood on her fingers where she had injured them. Snatching her hand from his, she knelt and groped for something lying beside the well.
“Mother, come away,” he begged and, like a child, she let herself be led out onto the drive. “Mother, what is it?”
She shook her head, remained mute, hid her hand in the folds of her dressing gown, the hem whispering over the grass as he brought her across the lawn to the foot of the outside stairway. Her free hand flitted distractedly to her mouth, as though holding captive unspeakable words. She weaved, seemed about to collapse. Reaching to steady her, he caught the familiar odor. She shrank back against the bottom railing post, her body trembling, bending as though unable to support the unsupportable.
“Please, Mother.” He waited for her to go up; again her hand flew to her face and he saw that she had broken a nail near the quick. She started up then, her gown trailing along step by step as she mounted the stairs, and, following, he saw her hand leave a trail of dark spots along the railing.
When she reached the top landing she faltered uncertainly and hiccuped once, leaning against the post while he stepped past her and opened the screen door.
“Niles.” Still her words choked in her throat, her expression that of some dumb creature caught in a trap whose jaws have sprung upon some vital part of the body. “Niles.” Again she stopped, and the long, silent pause spread apart the moment like doors closing off a room, dividing it into separate chambers. Still mute, she took her hand from the folds of her gown and opened her fist; in the palm lay the gold ring, Peregrine for Perry.
“Oh,” he said softly, reaching for it. “You found the tobacco can. I knew you had.” A slight movement: she was holding the tin in her other hand. When she spoke it was with immense difficulty.
“Niles, what are you doing with that ring?”
“It’s Father’s.”
“I know that. And your father gave it to Holland. What are you doing with it?”
“Where’s the packet that was with it, Mother?” The Thing; she has opened, has seen it . . . Holland . . .
She drew in a sharp, short breath, as if a deeper one would cause her some injury inside, deep in the delicate workings of her anatomy. She swallowed, shook her head; again the words were unutterable. In a while she said, “Tell me, Niles—what are you doing with that ring?” Barely a whisper.
His answer only agitated her further. She gripped the post tighter, squeezing more blood from her wounded finger, turning the knuckles ivory in the moonlight.
“How? How can it be yours?” She was impatient to understand: the weighted gesture of her body, the frantically entreating eyes attested to her need to fathom facts her mind could not comprehend.
Unwillingly he spoke. “Holland gave it to me.”
The words seemed to strike her in the face, each a separate blow. She averted her head.
He looked at her earnestly. “He did, Mother, honest. I didn’t steal it.”
“But it was decided—Holland—Holland was to keep it. Ada said it was decided.”
“Yes, I know. But then afterward, he said he wanted me to have it. He told me I could have it. He made me take it—honest he did.” Somehow he had to make her believe the truth.
“When? When did Holland make you take it?”
“In March. He gave it to me in March.”
“March.” Silently she mouthed the word, examining it, trying to find some kernel of rationality there, something acceptable to her mind. “When in March?”
“After our birthdays.”
“Your birthdays. How long after?”
“Two days.”
Then horror swept across her face, of the sort that closes and seals off all the corridors of the mind. “Where, Niles? In the name of heaven, say,” she implored. “Where was Holland when he gave you the ring?”
“Here.”
“In this house?”
“Yes. Downstairs.” He slid the ring on. It felt like ice. His finger pulsed hotly. Then he asked for the packet, the blue tissue paper packet. She stared lifelessly. He awaited her answer, letting his breath out a little at a time. A minute passed. She did a little thing with her mouth, whimpered slightly, but no word was spoken. Below, the staircase stretched away into the void.
Finally: “Where is it, Mother?” he repeated gently.
Her hand grasped her throat as if its manipulation would allow her to speak without choking, would somehow articulate her desolation. “Did he give you that too?”
“Yes,” he said dully. How could he explain it, to her satisfaction, that grim piece of anatomy? “Where is it, Mother?”
She fumbled the lid of the tobacco tin and spilled The Thing out into her palm, the tissue paper blooming brightly in the moonlight, a blue moon-rose. Then, a sudden rush of breath; the packet dropping, the tobacco tin, her hands moving out and away from her, pale wings fluttering toward him like birds. He stepped forward to catch, to cage them. Meeting, her body lifted, hung there an instant, suspended, like the marionette in the storeroom, dangling on strings. The hem of her robe describing a graceful figure around her ankles as she spun, a pale lilac swirl, she seemed all at once to crumple, as though those strings controlling her movements had suddenly slackened, permitting her a ridiculous little step, dancing forward on the landing, then back against the white-painted post, then falling sideways, away from him altogether. “Oh,” she murmured briefly, her tone surprised, apologetic almost, to discover herself falling. And, standing there, petrified, arms rigidly outstretched, watching her fall, even before the darkness blotted out her white face and she lay in a broken tangle at the bottom of the stairs, he felt that in some way, in that instant, all her questions had finally been answered.
8
Dusting the ash of her Melachrino cigarette from the front of her flowered smock, Miss Josceline-Marie directed her attention to the young paying customer coming from the rear of the shop. “Well,” she sang out to the sweet face, “did we find something today?”
“Yes.” Carefully Niles held up a figure with a wide ruff, shoes whose ends curled, a pompom on the hat, a label saying Venetian glass.
“Oh, he’s lovely, Sig-nor Palacchi is”—Pagliaccio, she meant; it was a clown—“ent he lovely? Sweet. Did we see Mrs. Palacchi too? Make a lovely pair.”
“No, just the one today,” he said, refusing the bait. Her face fell a mile. “And I’ll take this too,” he said, laying on the counter a small tin music-box painted with flowers and cherubs and hanging on a loop of ribbon. “Could you wrap the clown as a gift, please?”
“As a gift?” She made a little bud of her mouth. “I don’t usually do gift wrap; do it for you, have to do it for them all, don’t I?”
Winnie, who had been browsing at a nearby counter, stepped up.
“That’s all right, Niles, I’ll do a wrap for you when we get
home.” She turned to Miss Josceline-Marie and explained, “It’s got to look like a special present.”
The bud mouth burst prettily into bloom. “Shoot, why I guess I can wrap a tiny little clown. For Niles Perry I certainly can. A special present, you say? Would I be being nosy Parker to ask who it’s for? A little girlfriend, perhaps?” She clutched under her stand for a box and some gift wrap.
“No, it’s for someone else.” Embarrassed by the inquisition, Niles went back to the newspaper rack to read the latest headline about Bruno Hauptmann, the Lindbergh baby kidnapper.
“Now who do you suppose Sig-nor Palacchi could be a special present for?” Miss Josceline-Marie wondered, shrouding the glass figure in tissue, tucking it in a box, and scissoring out the smallest smidgen of paper possible from a roll of silver gift wrap. “His mother?” she twittered, keeping her voice low. “But whatever will she do with it, for heaven’s sake? Fell eighteen steps, they say; why, must of seemed a mile. And sitting in a wheelchair, can’t even talk? Practically a vegetable, they say. But she hadn’t been right for a long time, had she?” She made a lovely bow on top of the box. “What with Vining dying the terrible way he did, and then—”
“She can move her hands some,” Winnie said, bridling. “She puts on her own makeup, and she can even roll her chair around a bit.”
“Oh, then she writes notes, does she, to tell you what she wants?”
“No. You ask her a question and she can blink her eyes—”
“Why, just think of that! But the poor thing, in her chair, what does she do with her time, I wonder?”
“Niles reads aloud to her—”
“Why, if he isn’t the best thing!” Miss Josceline-Marie clapped her little hands. “And Victoria with her baby. Miracle she didn’t lose it altogether. Brought on by the accident, of course. Shock, I suppose. But they say them incubator babies grow up healthy, don’t they?” She smiled her satisfaction with the results of being kept in an oxygen tent for two weeks. “Are they going to continue living in the house, Torrie and Rider?”