Marian Cullinan screaming.
Half an hour later the larger world invaded Nora's life, at first in the form of the many policemen who supplied her with coffee, bombarded her with questions, and wrote down everything she said, thereafter as represented by the far more numerous and invasive press and television reporters who for a brief but intensely uncomfortable period pursued her wherever she went, publishing their various inventions as fact, broadcasting simplifications, distortions, and straightforward untruths, a process which led, as always, to more of the same. If she had agreed, Nora could have appeared on a dozen television programs of the talk-show or tabloid kind, sold the rights to her story to a television production company, and seen her photograph on the covers of the many magazines devoted to trivializing what is already trivial. She did none of these things, considering them no more seriously than she considered accepting any of the sixteen marriage proposals which came to her in the mail. When the public world embraced her, its exaggerations and reductions of her tale made her so unrecognizable to herself that even the photographs in the newspapers seemed to be of someone else, Jeffrey Deodato, who endured a lesser version of Nora's temporary celebrity, also declined to assist in the public falsification of his life.
Once Nora had satisfied her laborious obligations to the law enforcement officers of several cities, what she wanted was enough space and time to reorder her life. She also wanted to do three specific things, and these she did, each one.
But this long, instructive process did not begin until forty minutes after she put Dick Dart to death, when the world rushed in and snatched her up. In the interim, Nora freed the other two women and let Margaret Nolan comfort Lily Melville while she held Jeffrey's hand and tried to assess his injury. Clearly in pain but bleeding less severely than she had feared, Jeffrey said, 'I'll live, unless I die of embarrassment.' Marian Cullinan retreated to her room, but sensible Margaret volunteered to drive Jeffrey to the hospital and used the imposing force of her personality to dissuade Nora from coming along. She would try to call the Lenox police from the hospital; if the telephones did not work, she would go to the police station after leaving the hospital. She ran to the lot and returned with her car. Staggering, supported by Margaret and Nora, Jeffrey was capable of getting to the door and down the walk. While easing him into the car, Nora remembered to ask Margaret what had happened to Agnes Brotherhood.
'Oh, my Lord,' Margaret said. 'Agnes is locked in her room. She must be frantic.' She told Nora where in her office to find the key and suggested that she might want to clean herself up and put on some clothes before the police came.
Nora had forgotten that she'd been naked ever since she had taken off Marian's coat beneath the terrace.
Margaret raced off toward Lenox, and Nora walked back toward Main House and Agnes, who had escaped the attentions of Dick Dart because he had been unable to get into her room.
She walked past the lounge without looking at Dart's body. The keys, each with a label, were in the top left- hand drawer of the desk, just as Margaret had said. Nora pulled on Margaret's big blue raincoat and went down the hall to Agnes's room.
The thin figure in the bed was sleeping, Nora thought, but as she took two steps into the room, Agnes said, 'Marian, why did you take so long? I don't like being locked in, and I don't like you, either.'
'It's not Marian,' Nora said. 'I'm the woman who saw you this afternoon. Do you remember? We talked about Katherine Mannheim.'
A rustle of excited movement came from the bedclothes, and Nora could make out a dim figure pushing itself upright. 'They let you come back! Or did you sneak in? Was that you who tried to get in before?'
Agnes had no idea of what had gone on downstairs. 'No, that was someone else.'
'Well, you're here now, and I know you're right. I want you to know. I want to tell you.'
'Tell me,' Nora said. She bumped into a chair and sat down.
'He raped her,' Agnes said. 'That terrible, ugly man raped her, and she died of a heart attack.'
'Lincoln Chancel raped Katherine Mannheim.' Nora did not say that she already understood at least that much.
'You don't believe me,' Agnes said.
'I believe you absolutely.' Nora closed her eyes and sagged against the back of the chair.
'He raped her and she died. He went to get the other one, the other horrible man. That was what I saw.'
'Yes,' Nora said. Her voice seemed to come from a great distance. 'And then you told the mistress, and she went to Gingerbread and saw them with her body. But you didn't know what she did after that for a long time.'
'I couldn't have stayed here if I knew. She only told me when she was sick and taking that medicine that didn't do anything but make her sicker.'
'Did you ask her about it? You finally wanted to know the truth, didn't you?'
Agnes started to cry with muffled sniffs. 'I did, I wanted to know. She
'The mistress got money from Mr Chancel. A lot of money.'
'He gave her whatever she wanted. He had to. She could have sent them both to jail. She had proof.'
Nora let her head roll back on her shoulders and breathed out the question she had to ask. 'What kind of proof did she have, Agnes?'
'The note, the letter, whatever you call it. The one she made Mr Driver write.'
'Tell me about that.'
'It was in Gingerbread. The mistress made Mr Driver write down everything they did and what they were going to do. Mr Chancel didn't want him to do it, but the mistress said that if he didn't, she would go back to the house and get the police on them. She knew he wouldn't kill her, even though he probably wanted to, because she put herself in with them. Mr Chancel still wouldn't do it, but Mr Driver did. One was as good as two, she said. She told them where to bury that poor girl, and she put that in the note herself, in her own writing. That was how she put herself in with them.'
She managed to say what she knew. 'And she put the note in her safe, the one under her bed, didn't she?'
'It's still there,' Agnes said. 'I used to want to look at it sometimes, but if I did I'd know where they buried her, and I didn't want to know that.'
'You can open her safe?'
'I opened it a thousand times when I was taking care of her. She kept her jewelry in there. I got things out for her when she wanted to wear them. Do you want to see it?'
'Yes, I do,' Nora said, opening her eyes and straightening up. 'Can you walk that far, Agnes?'
'I can walk from here to the moon if you give me enough time.' Agnes reached out and closed her hand around Nora's wrist. 'Why is your skin so rough?'
'I'm pretty muddy,' Nora said.
'Ought to clean yourself up, young thing like you.'
Agnes levered herself out of the bed and shuffled toward the door, gripping Nora's wrist. When they moved into the light, she took in Nora's condition with shocked disapproval. 'What happened to you? You look like a savage.'
'I fell down,' Nora said.
'Why are you wearing Margaret's raincoat?'
'It's a long story.'
'Never saw the like,' Agnes said, and shuffled out into the hallway.
In Georgina Weatherall's bedroom, the old woman switched on the lights and asked Nora to put a chair in front of the bed. She twirled the dial. 'I'll remember this combination after I forget my own name.' She opened the safe door, reached in, extracted a long, once creamy envelope yellow with age, and held it out to Nora. 'Take that with you. Get it out of this house. I have to go to the bathroom now. Will you please help me?'
Nora waited outside the bathroom until Agnes had finished, then conducted her back to her room. As she helped her get back into bed, she told her that there had been some trouble downstairs. The police were going to come, but everything was all right. Marian and Lily and Margaret were all fine, and the police would want to talk to her, but all she had to do was tell them that she had been locked in her room, and they would go away. 'I'd rather you didn't say anything about the letter you gave me,' she said, 'but of course that's up to you.'
