She reached the house and went in through the kitchen, because that was quicker. Warmth met her, and the secretive knowing silence of a just-emptied house. The oil burner started up with a throb, a board creaked somewhere, the refrigerator gave a mechanical mutter and settled back to work. Elizabeth, catching her breath with difficulty, called uncertainly, “Hello?”
And, at the foot of the stairs, “Constance . . . ?”
But she was alone in the house.
The quality of the silence suggested it; the front door, swinging inward a lazy inch while she waited at the foot of the stairs with lifted face, confirmed it. Someone had flashed down these stairs not much over a minute ago, and had not taken time to close the door securely.
Either that or, out of fear and a nearly-sleepless night, she had shaped an innocent reflection into a face, and the door had been left that way earlier.
Upstairs, she found her answer. The door of Noreen’s room was ajar, and Elizabeth went in. It was a small room, slant-ceilinged, wallpapered in a pattern of ivy and curly pink flowers. There v/as a single bed and night table, a bureau, an armchair, a hooked rug full of clear pastels.
Throughout the air hung a heavy sweet perfume, alien to Elizabeth, clearly wrong in that room.
There were two glass bottles on the bureau. Elizabeth uncapped them, sniffed at innocuous flower fragrances and replaced them carefully. Outside Constance’s door she hesitated a moment and then went in.
Her cousin’s usually immaculate room was untidy today; to see the tweed suit Constance had worn that morning flung carelessly on the bed and a rejected stocking draped rakishly over a chair was almost like catching Constance herself with no clothes on. Elizabeth had no real attention for the room. She went to the dressing-table, tested a tall bottle of cologne and found it to be gardenia, and paused. Her heartbeats refused to quiet, the palms of her hands felt damp. What was this sense of urgent hurry, almost of personal danger?
She pulled her thoughts back. Whoever had worn that drench of perfume hadn’t applied it here, unless—At the back of the dressing-table, near the mirror, was a small something in pink and white striped wrapping. It had been opened and loosely re-wrapped. Before Elizabeth’s scruples could catch up with her fingers the striped paper had fallen away.
It was perfume—imported, costly—in a chaste, unopened white box. There was a card, and on it was written simply, “I hope you will accept this from H.W.”
Elizabeth came aware suddenly of Constance’s bedside clock. How long since she had come into the house—five minutes, six? She closed the door of her cousin’s bedroom behind her and went down the stairs to the telephone. She heard her own voice, expressionless, giving the Brents’ number, and then she waited and listened to the patient, empty drawl. She was about to hang up when the receiver at the other end was lifted with a jostling sound and Lucy’s voice, breathless, said, “Hello? Yes, hello, who is it?”
Breathless.
“Elizabeth. I wondered if by any chance you still had . . .”
Moments later, after pretending to write down an address she didn’t want, Elizabeth put the receiver back. The silent house, the witnessing walls and watchful mirrors that could have told her everything she wanted to know, were full of suggestions.
She didn’t listen. She made herself a sandwich and tea, turned on a lamp against the threatening light, and settled down grimly with a book. Before she did any of those things she did a thing she had never done before: nonchalantly, trying not to notice herself doing it, she locked every door in the house.
The thing that turned up so neatly and logically, its purpose spent, was Mrs. Bennett’s pocketbook.
Noreen brought it to Elizabeth the next afternoon. “Excuse me, Mrs. March, but would you have any idea whose this is?”
Elizabeth took the bag and looked at it carefully. It was old and worn, its top clasp tarnished, its black fabric folds dusty. Mrs. Bennett’s cheerful voice seemed to emanate from it: “Oh, don’t trouble your head about it, Mrs. March, it’ll turn up, and small loss if it doesn’t. It was an old thing anyway—nothing in it but a handkerchief and a few old bills, and Lord knows there’s more where they came from . . .”
A receipted bill, from a public utility, perhaps . . . would that do for identification at a bank? Elizabeth didn’t know. She said, “Yes, it belonged to Mrs. Bennett, who used to take care of the children. She lost it here and we combed the house . . . where did you find it, Noreen?” and knew the answer to that even before the girl spoke.
“In the closet in my room, way up on the shelf at the back. I did some Christmas shopping this morning and when I put the presents away I felt it there . . . I hope Mrs. Bennett remembers just what was in it,” said Noreen, her color high, “because I never touched it at all, Mrs. March, except to bring it straight down to you.”
She gave her head a quick perplexed shake and gazed troubledly down at the bag. This, thought Elizabeth, must be the perpetual nightmare of people working in other people’s houses. She said quickly, “Of course not,” and then, “Thanks, Noreen. I’ll take care of it.”
So the errand of the intruder in Noreen’s room yesterday was explained. The pocketbook had not been in the closet when Noreen moved her things in; Mrs. Bennett had given the room a thorough turning-out and Elizabeth herself had inspected it. The placing of it there
