Hodge hauled his watch out of his pocket.
“Look at that.”
I focused on it.
“Four thirty.”
“Is that a nice time to come home, with a death in the house only a couple days ago?”
“Well, I came home with you at three once, and that was too early. Think of what happened to me after that.”
“That’s one thing you don’t have to worry about,” Lieutenant Strom pointed out largely. “You don’t have to keep tabs on the lady anymore, Kistler. She’s as safe as if she was locked up in a cell.”
“That’s what you think,” Mr. Kistler said shortly.
24
AT ANY RATE, I was safe that night. Nothing happened to me after four thirty except sleep.
It was after that night that Hodge Kistler began acting differently toward me. He still knocked at my door when he came in at night, still kidded me about my master mind. But he didn’t ask me out anymore. He often seemed to be thinking about something, but he wouldn’t let me in on it. I thought it was just silly. Why should he mind if the lieutenant took me out? When the lieutenant asked me again, I went. Hodge didn’t say anything.
Of the things that I had expected to happen then in Mrs. Garr’s house, some did, some didn’t. Mrs. Halloran moved over some of her belongings that week after Mr. Grant’s death. She was there all day every day, but she didn’t stay at night. And none of the rest of her family moved in.
“Aren’t you moving over?” I asked her.
She looked at me portentously.
“Didn’t you ever hear about deaths coming in threes?” she asked in tones of sepulchral gloom. “If it’d been just Aunt Hattie died out of this house, I wouldn’t of minded. But two deaths! I ain’t going to move in here until another one dies.”
Nice.
Mr. Halloran was around occasionally. Usually in company with burly, shifty men; the lesser grade of contractors, I gathered. They knocked at my door and tracked through my rooms, staring speculatively around at the walls. Mr. Halloran was desperately important, of course.
Money to spend.
Mrs. Halloran told me they were getting a mortgage on the house.
The Tewmans never came back.
But the rest of the tenants didn’t make the exodus I’d expected at all. Miss Sands was the only one to tell me she was leaving.
“Mrs. Halloran wants me to go on paying five dollars for that measly room, can you imagine that?” She paused and flushed. “It’s nice you aren’t telling. I can just see those Hallorans playing the same game on me Mrs. Garr did.”
“So can I,” I said. “You don’t have to worry.”
Hodge, when I asked him, said, “Why should I move? I like an eventful life. This house has developed charms I never expected. Besides, think of the company!”
Mr. Buffingham, after Miss Sands had given notice, had a fight with Mrs. Halloran right outside my door; he won with a weekly rental of three dollars.
Most surprising of all, the Wallers didn’t move. Mrs. Halloran reported that they were paying six dollars for their rooms now, without a murmur.
“I’m still thinking who could of give me that five-dollar bill,” she reminded me. “You know, the one that was tore. It doesn’t seem to come to me that it was Mr. Grant. But it wouldn’t surprise me if it come to me sometime. I got an awful good memory.”
She repeated not one word of her previous request to me to move.
I didn’t think of moving.
I admit now why I didn’t, but you couldn’t have made me, then. Then, I laid it to something I felt when I went to bed at night.
The house wasn’t at rest yet.
The house still listened.
It wasn’t logical at all. If Mrs. Garr had been the evil spirit of that house, as I fully believed she had been, then surely the house should have been quiet now. If Mr. Grant had precipitated the horrors of the weeks just past, as Lieutenant Strom believed, then surely the house should have been quiet now.
It wasn’t.
We had no more detectives around, of course.
I blamed it all on my imagination, as I lay awake, hearing the stir and groan of the walls and floors, feeling the stare of eyes open on the dark, hearing the strain of ears tense in the night. When I told Lieutenant Strom about it, on our second date, he laughed loud and long. Hodge Kistler, when I told him, didn’t.
The next Friday, a week after Mr. Grant’s death, and the day Hodge is freest from his duties on the paper, I saw his car scoot up Trent Street toward the house with an extra passenger in it. The extra passenger was Mr. Waller.
When I mentioned it, Hodge said, “Waller? Sure. Saw him on the street. Gave him a lift.”
I thought no more of it then, but that next Sunday, not having anything else to do, I baked cookies. I took a plate of them up to Hodge. When he opened his door, Mr. Waller was in his sitting room. I thought that was queer.
Mr. Waller looked almost like his old self when the door opened, but when he saw me he collapsed into humiliation again. He didn’t go, though. I did. I left the cookies and went downstairs.
That day Mrs. Halloran had ads in the papers for renting Miss Sands’ and Mr. Liberry’s rooms. She had people tracking in and out of the house all day. Curiosity seekers; she didn’t rent.
Poor Mr. Grant. His death had kindled one bright flare, and then he was forgotten. I heard from Lieutenant Strom that he’d left his money to an orphanage; as far as he could find, there were no Liberry relatives left.
“In all the world there are probably only you and me and the Wallers to whom the name Rose Liberry still means anything,” I said sadly, thinking of the lovely pictured girl.
It
