“The questioning tonight—Mr. Grant’s, I mean—didn’t go into the Liberry case at all, did it? It was when he was talking to Mr. Buffingham that Lieutenant Strom went into that.”
“I think maybe I ought to call the chief,” Jones offered. “But you saw the way he slammed out of here. He ought to be asleep by now. I’d get my head bitten off at the neck.”
“Tomorrow’s another day,” Hodge agreed.
“Especially with you on guard in the hall,” I reminded Mr. Jones. “Mr. Grant will still be here in the morning, with you to keep him here.”
So Lieutenant Strom wasn’t called.
I wonder if it would have made any difference if he had been.
In the end, I am sure, there would have been no difference.
—
I WAS RESTLESS THAT night.
It was hard to pin my restlessness down to any one thing.
Mr. Waller didn’t come home. He was still being held, then. We were safe from him, if he was the marauder.
If he was not, then there was the detective in the hall to keep us safe from whoever it was.
I had left my hall doors open again, and I could hear the rattle of Jones’ paper, and his movements as he twisted in his chair.
I finally pinned my restlessness to Mr. Grant. I couldn’t figure out his attitude. “Very interesting. Very. I remember the case well. I was a friend of the family.” His voice murmured in my ears as I tried vainly to sleep. I tried to put myself in Mr. Grant’s mind, to see and feel as he would.
Mr. Grant twenty years younger. Fifty, perhaps. A friend of Mr. Liberry. An acquaintance of Miss Rachel Staines, the aunt. Of course they would have friends. There must be others, still living.
The first thing I should do in the morning must be to hurry Lieutenant Strom into finding the friends and relatives of Rose Liberry, if he hadn’t already started doing so. They would like to know.
The girl’s father and mother might still live out of town. But the aunt had lived in town. I’d look in the phone book. Staines, Rachel, 1128 Cleveland Avenue. Would the name still be there?
“Miss Staines, this is Mrs. Dacres. You won’t know me, but I have good news for you . . . Your niece, Rose Liberry—the one that died so sadly—her suicide note has been found at last.”
I’d never sleep, thinking about all this. Mr. Grant, a friend of the family. Worried and kindly when the first news of the disappearance came. Helping with money, perhaps. Horrified when the end came. A friend of the family.
I slept at last, but I had nightmares in which Rose Liberry’s family cried to me: “Hurry, hurry, hurry!”
When I woke, it was bright morning, but I was still heavily tired. I dragged myself out of bed and yawned my breakfast ready; funny—the day before yesterday, I’d been starving on orange juice, and now I’d already forgotten that hunger. The top of my head was still sore; that was the only remnant of Monday’s attack. It was Friday. About time, I thought sardonically, for me to have another.
After I’d eaten I wandered out into the hall. Mr. Grant was back on my mind. Jones was still there, sleepy and cross.
“Good morning!”
“Morning.”
“Everything normal? No murders?”
“Naw.”
“Seen Mr. Grant this morning?”
“He ain’t been down yet.”
“Poor old man,” I said. “He’s probably all in. I think I’ll make fresh coffee and take him a cup.”
“Okay, sister. I could use one myself.”
So I made coffee, left a cup with the grateful Jones, and went upstairs with the other. The hall upstairs was dark and silent. Hodge was probably gone. Mr. Buffingham would still be sleeping. Miss Sands at work. Mrs. Waller—Mrs. Waller would be alone.
I’d seldom seen either of the Wallers alone. I thought about their life, knit so closely by shared shame. For better, for worse. Mrs. Waller had taken her full share of the shame.
It was really the Wallers I was thinking of as I knocked softly on Mr. Grant’s door.
There wasn’t any answer.
I knocked again.
The door gave a little as I knocked. Mr. Grant, then, as I had, had left his door unlocked last night. He hadn’t even caught the lock. Probably he had been afraid he might be sick in the night and need help.
He was an old man. Surely, he wouldn’t mind if I came in to see how he was.
I swung the door open.
He slept on the bed, his face turned to the open window. The light fell strongly on his sleeping face; he looked rested, serene, all the weariness of last night gone.
The room was very bright. I looked upward.
The electric light in the ceiling was still on.
I think I knew then.
Softly I set the cup and saucer on the dresser top. Lightly I touched the man’s arm.
Dead.
I knew, too, what to look for.
On the table by the bed were two slips of paper, one laid neatly over the other. The top one was familiar. Rose Liberry’s suicide note.
Under it was a shorter note:
I am John Grant Liberry. I am very happy tonight; I cannot wait to go to her.
23
I WENT QUIETLY DOWNSTAIRS to tell Jones.
He woke up thoroughly then, gave a startled exclamation, ran upstairs, came charging back. I sat down on the black leather davenport to cry; Jones called Strom and paced the floor, anxious.
“Gosh, what’ll he say? With me right here!” was his refrain.
Lieutenant Strom appeared with his usual promptness; if he left abruptly, he came abruptly, too. It didn’t seem five minutes before he was there in the hall, Van and Bill behind him.
“What’s eating you?” he said to me before he spoke to Jones.
“I’m glad he saw the note,” I sobbed.
“What note?”
“You dropped Rose Liberry’s suicide note. Mr. Grant—he’s her father.”
“For crying out loud! Come along,
