The Door by Mary Roberts Rinehart Page B

nothing for a full minute. It must have been a terrible shock to him. Perhaps he was going back, in his mind; who knew about the cane? Amos, of course. And Amos had been talking. His distrust and anger at Amos must have been a devastating thing just then. But he rallied himself.
    “What’s that got to do with it? Anybody can lose a stick. I’ve lost dozens, hundreds.”
    “You carried it out with you that night, you know.”
    “And I suppose that proves that I killed Sarah Gittings! And that I got up out of a sick bed the other night, put a can of kerosene in my car and shot this Florence Gunther! There’s no case there. I carry a stick out one night and forget it somewhere. Well, they can’t hang me for that. And I wasn’t out of this house last Sunday night.”
    What could I say? Tell him Wallie’s story, that the sword-cane had not disappeared until Sarah’s body was found? That he had brought it back, and that the police knew he had brought it back? He hated Wallie, and I was in no condition to face an outburst of anger from him, especially since I felt that that too might have been prepared in advance; the careful defense of a frightened man.
    One thing I was certain of when I left. He was a frightened man, but not a sick man. The loose sleeve of his pyjama coat revealed a muscular and well-nourished arm, and when Amos came in reply to the summons he carried a night tray with a substantial supper and a siphon and bottle.
    Jim scowled when he saw it.
    “You can leave that, and I want you to drive Miss Bell home, Amos. She walked over.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    I had a flash then of the strange relationship between the two of them, shut in there together; of suspicion and anger on Jim’s part, and on the negro’s of fear and something else. Not hostility. Uneasiness, perhaps.
    “Can I shake up your pillows, sir?”
    “No. Don’t bother.”
    I felt baffled as I went down the stairs.
    I daresay it is always difficult to face civilized human beings and to try to realize that they have joined the lost brotherhood of those who have willfully taken human lives. There appears to be no gulf; they breathe, eat, talk, even on occasion laugh. There is no mark on their foreheads. But the gulf is there, never to be bridged; less broad perhaps for those who have killed in passion, but wider than eternity itself for those who have planned, plotted, schemed, that a living being shall cease to live.
    All hope that Jim Blake would clear himself, at least in my eyes, was gone. And at the foot of the stairs Amos was waiting, enigmatic, the perfect servant, to help me into my wrap.
    “I’ll bring the car around at once, ma’am.”
    “I’ll go back with you, Amos. It will save time.”
    “The yard’s pretty dark, Miss Bell.”
    “Haven’t you a flashlight?”
    He produced one at once from a drawer of the hall table, and I followed him, through his neat pantry and kitchen and out into the yard. Here in mild weather Jim sometimes served coffee after dinner, and he had planted it rather prettily. I remember the scent of the spring night as I followed Amos, and seeing the faint outlines of Jim’s garden furniture, a bench, a few chairs, a table.
    “I see you have your things out already, Amos.”
    “Yes’m. I painted them a few days ago. We’ll be having warm weather soon.”
    I took the light while he unlocked the small door and backed the car into the alley beyond. It occurred to me that the watcher out front would hear the noise and come to investigate, but the alley was lined with garages. One car more or less would make little difference.
    I have wondered about that surveillance since. Clearly it would always have been possible for Jim to come and go by the alley way if he so desired. Probably the intention was not that, but rather to see what visitors he received, and for all I know there may have been some arrangement with Amos, to warn the watcher if Jim left his bed and dressed for any purpose.
    However that may be,