She had watched his approach, but a deliberate silent interval went by before he heard her progress toward the door. Unhurried, as his had been; calm, secure in this isolated place. Then the knob turned and the door swung inward, and he was face to face with the woman who had delicately, expertly murdered Martin Fennister.
CHAPTER 4
THE ICY GRAY light fell bleakly on Annabelle Blair. In the single direct stare that he allowed himself, Torrant absorbed details that didn’t, because of his intensity, come together at once.
Pale oval face, with a strong and rather heavy jawline, light blank eyes. Pools of webbed softness under the eyes and jaw: didn’t murder agree with her? Dark hair in a secretarial knot, one strong motionless hand in position on the doorknob, ready to dismiss him. That last gave Torrant a touch of grim satisfaction.
He was skeptical about auras; he was’ astonished at the amount of hostility this woman could shed without speaking.
During the one brief instant in which they regarded each other silently, he had again that impression of her awareness, her mocking wait for him, and again dismissed it as impossible. He said, “Miss Blair?”
“Yes?”
“I almost,” Torrant smiled disarmingly, “said ‘Mrs. Fennister.’ My name is Torrant—you don’t know me, but I was a very close friend of Martin’s.”
He thought that when he said ‘Fennister’ the white door moved forward an inch. Then Annabelle Blair said slowly, “I see,” and her light eyes had certainly narrowed a little.
“I’ve been abroad,” Torrant went on easily, “and out of touch. I didn’t know about Martin’s death until I went to Greenwich last week. It seemed the least I could do to look you up, under the circumstances.”
Annabelle Blair stood like a statue in the sharp fluttering light. Torrant said blandly, “May I come in?”
He didn’t feel bland. He wanted to seize this woman by the shoulders and shout that he knew what she had done to Martin, that he would see to it that other people knew it too; he wanted to produce in that cold steady face a pale echo of the terror she had planted in Martin’s mind. But she had not done her work as cleanly as that, and it was the essence of his plan to follow her own slow deadly method.
She seemed to hesitate a moment, and then she stepped back and said, “Yes, of course,” and swung the door wider.
The hall was shadowy; Torrant had only a brief glimpse of an oval mirror in a delicate frame and a white curve of staircase before Annabelle Blair led him into a square living room to the right of the front door. The dimness persisted here, in spite of the low windows; two of them faced the willow grove that swallowed the light on that side. The furnishings did nothing to brighten it: plush settee in bottle green, a pair of stiff fringed chairs, puddle-colored rug, wallpaper which seemed a faithful reproduction of dried seaweed. No previous tenant had been able to spoil the white mantel, which even to Torrant’s uncaring eye looked valuable.
He took in all these details meticulously, because he had to interest himself in everything that concerned this woman. Annabelle said, “Won’t you sit down, Mr.—Torrant? It’s kind of you to come. It’s—” she lifted the light, peculiarly blank eyes, “so thoughtful.”
Torrant absorbed the deliberate prick, and said politely that he had been so close to Martin, closer in fact than he was to his own brother, that it seemed the natural thing to do. “Did he tell you about our work together, Miss Blair?”
She had taken a chair with her back to the light. “Something of it, yes. Of course, we were married so short a time—”
“Six months,” said Torrant, and because it was the term of survival she had allowed Martin it came out more sharply than he intended. Annabelle Blair said with an air of sad reproach, “I’m afraid I didn’t count the days.”
“Of course not. It must have come as a terrible shock to you. Did you have someone to go to, or stay with . . . family?” She shook her glossy dark head; she said evasively, “People were very kind,” and her eyes on Torrant were probing. He noted that down as his first forward step, and met her gaze solicitously. “I realize that it’s a very personal question to ask, but did you have any suspicion beforehand? Was there any indication of what he had in mind?”
There was a small thoughtful silence while she inspected this. “No. But it was always a possibility with . . . what Martin was. As you say,” said Annabelle, looking levelly across the room at him, “under the circumstances.”
Torrant was moved to a cold admiration. Annabelle turned her head and gazed pointedly at a dark coat and scarf folded over one arm of the settee, and he stood up, pretending to notice them for the first time. “I’ll be on my way now, I’m afraid I’ve kept you.”
“Not at all.” She rose and crossed the room to precede him out; Torrant let her get as far as the entrance to the hall before he said confidingly, “I’m going to be here in town for a while, as a matter of fact. Nice little place, isn’t it? Quiet. Some day when you aren’t busy we must have a good long talk.”
She didn’t answer that, and it might have been the light that contracted the pupils of her eyes to tiny black points under ice. He said good-by again and heard the door
