Jim came to the cemetery between two detectives, like an animated sandwich. He was “all right.” Very little different from the Jim who had sat in the courtroom?altogether different from the Jim Ellery had sat upon in the cell. There was a whole despair about him so enveloping that he had poise and self-control, even dignity.
He marched along steadily between his two guards, ignoring them, looking neither to right nor to left, on the path under the aged trees up to the top of the hill where the newly turned earth gaped, like a wound, to receive Nora. The cars had been left near the gate.
Most of Wrightsville watched from a decent distance?let us give them that. But they were there, silent and curious; only occasionally someone whispered, or a forefinger told a story.
The Wrights stood about the grave in a woebegone group, Lola and Pat pressing close to Hermione and their father. John F.’s sister, Tabitha, had been notified, but she had wired that she was ill and could not fly to the funeral from California, and the Lord in His wisdom taketh away, and perhaps it was all for the best, may she rest in peace, your loving sister, Tabitha. John F. made a wad out of the wire and hurled it blindly; it landed in the early morning fire Ludie had lit against the chill in the big old house.
So it was just the immediate family group, and Ellery Queen, and Judge Eli Martin and Clarice and Doc Willoughby and some others; and, of course, Dr. Doolittle.
When Jim was brought up, a mutter arose from the watchers; eyes became very sharp for this meeting; this was very nearly “the best part of it.” But nothing remarkable happened. Or perhaps it did. For Hermy’s lips were seen to move, and Jim went over to her and kissed her. He paid no attention to anyone else; after that he just stood there at the grave, a thin figure of loneliness.
During the interment service a breeze ran through the leaves, like fingers; and indeed, Dr. Doolittle’s voice took on a lilt and became quite musical. The evergreens and lilies bordering the grave stirred a little, too.
Then, unbelievably, it was over, and they were shuffling down the walk, Hermy straining backward to catch a last glimpse of the casket which could no longer be seen, having been lowered into the earth. But the earth had not yet been rained upon it, for that would have been bestial; that could be done later, under no witnessing eyes but the eyes of the gravediggers, who were a peculiar race of people. So Hermy strained, and she thought how beautiful the evergreens and the lilies looked and how passionately Nora had detested funerals.
The crowd at the gate parted silently.
Then Jim did it.
* * *
One moment he was trudging along between the detectives, a dead man staring at the ground; the next he came alive. He tripped one of his guards. The man fell backward with a thud, his mouth an astonished O even as he fell. Jim struck the second guard on the jaw, so that the man fell on his brother officer and they threshed about, like wrestlers, trying to regain their feet.
In those few seconds Jim was gone, running through the crowd like a bull, bowling people over, spinning people around, dodging and twisting . . .
Ellery shouted at him, but Jim ran on.
The detectives were on their feet now, running, too, revolvers out uselessly. To fire would mean hitting innocent people. They pushed through, cursing and ashamed.
And then Ellery saw that Jim’s madness was not madness at all. For a quarter way down the hill, past all the parked cars, stood a single great car, its nose pointed away from the cemetery. No one was in it; but the motor had been kept running, Ellery knew, for Jim leaped in and the car shot forward at once.
By the time the two detectives reached a clear space and fired down the hill, the big limousine was a toy in the distance. It was careening crazily and going at a great speed.
And after another few moments, the detectives reached their own car and took up the chase, one driving, the other still firing wildly. But Jim was well out of range by this time, and everyone knew he had a splendid chance of escaping. The two cars disappeared.
For some moments there was no sound on the hillside but the sound of the wind in the trees.
Then the crowd shouted and swept over the Wrights and their friends, and automobiles began flying down the hill in merry clouds of dust, as if this were a paid entertainment and their drivers were determined not to miss the exciting climax.
* * *
Hermy lay on the living-room settee, and Pat and Lola were applying cold vinegar compresses to her head while John F. turned the pages of one of his stamp albums with great deliberation, as if it were one of the most important things in the world. He was in a corner by the window to catch the late afternoon light. Clarice Martin was holding Hermy’s hand tightly in an ecstasy of remorse, crying over her defection during the trial and over Nora and over this last shocking blow. And Hermy?Hermy the Great!?was comforting her friend!
Lola slapped a new compress so hard on her mother’s forehead that Hermy smiled at her reproachfully. Pat took it away from her angry sister and set it right.
At the fireplace Dr. Willoughby and Mr. Queen conversed in low tones.
Then Judge Martin came in from outdoors.
And with him was Carter Bradford.
Everything stopped, as if an enemy had walked into camp. But Carter ignored it. He was quite pale but held himself erect; and he kept from looking at Pat, who had turned paler than he. Clarice Martin was frankly frightened. She glanced quickly at her husband, but Judge Eli shook his head and went over to the window to seat himself by John F. and watch the fluttering pages of the stamp album, so gay with color.
“I don’t want to intrude, Mrs. Wright,” said Carter stiffishly. ”But I had to tell you how badly I feel about?all this.”
“Thank you, Carter,” said Hermy. ”Lola, stop babying me! Carter, what about”?Hermy swallowed?”Jim?”
“Jim got away, Mrs. Wright.”
“I’m
Carter glanced her way. ”Don’t say that, Patty. That sort of thing never winds up right. Nobody ‘gets away.’ Jim would have been better . . . advised to have stuck it out.”
“So that you could hound him to his death, I suppose! All over again!”
“Pat.” John F. left his stamp album where it was. He put his thin hand on Carter’s arm. ”It was nice of you to come here today, Cart. I’m sorry if I was every harsh with you. How does it look?”
“Bad, Mr. Wright.” Carter’s lips tightened. ”Naturally, the alarm is out. All highways are being watched. It’s true he got away, but it’s only a question of time before he’s captured?”
“Bradford,” inquired Mr. Queen from the fireplace, “have you traced the getaway car?”
“Yes.” ‘
“Looked like a put-up job to me,” muttered Dr. Willoughby. ”That car was in a mighty convenient place, and the motor was running!”
“Whose car is it?” demanded Lola.
“It was rented from Homer Findlay’s garage in Low Village this morning.”
“Rented!” exclaimed Clarice Martin. ”By whom?”
“Roberta Roberts.”
Ellery said: “Ah,” in a tone of dark satisfaction, and nodded as if that were all he had wanted to know. But the others were surprised.
Lola tossed her head. ”Good for her!”
“Carter let me talk to the woman myself just now,” said Judge Eli Martin wearily. ”She’s a smart female. Insists she hired the car just to drive to the cemetery this morning.”
“And that she left the motor running by mistake,” added Carter Bradford dryly.
“And was it a coincidence that she also turned the car about so that it pointed down the hill?” murmured Mr. Queen.
“That’s what I asked her,” said Carter. ”Oh, there’s no question about her complicity, and Dakin’s holding her. But that doesn’t get Jim Haight back, nor does it give us a case against this Roberts woman. We’ll probably have to let her go.” He said angrily: “I never did trust that woman!”
“She visited Jim on Sunday,” remarked Ellery reflectively.
