Black Maria, M.A.: A Classic Crime Novel. John Russell Fearn
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Dick interrupted: “Take no notice of her, Jan. She’s nuts. Been that way for some time now, but I’m dashed if I can figure out why. Maybe the hot weather. It does bring out a rash.”
“Dick,” Janet said, turning to him, “what is she like?”
“Holy cats, do I have to start in all over again? What do you think I am—an information bureau? She is all—”
“Can it be that I am the cause of this little argument?”
Maria had come quietly into the room. Undoubtedly the girls of Roseway would not have recognized their empress this evening. The bun was still there unfortunately—but the rest of Maria, exquisitely gowned and matronly, was divorced completely from the somber college ruler.
Dick jumped to his feet immediately, caught Janet’s arm.
“This is Janet, Aunt. Remember her? She was five when—”
“When we last met,” Maria nodded, and stood gravely as the girl kissed her lightly on the cheek. Then she went on, “So this is the five-year-old who ate all my butter-creams when she came to England? Well! Amazing—! And now you are a public figure—a singer.... You make me feel quite old, my dear.”
Janet smiled. “I’m afraid the old man with the scythe has no sense of humor, aunt. One just grows up, and there it is. But look, you have never met Pat, in the flesh that is. Her photographs don’t do her justice, you know— Come on, Pat!” she insisted. “Don’t stand sulking over there.”
Patricia shrugged and came forward rather sullenly. She returned Maria’s calm, blue-eyed gaze with one of equal power, and infused into it a definite challenge. Finally she held out a milky hand indifferently.
Maria ignored it and said calmly, “You may kiss me, Patricia.”
Pat hesitated, lowered her hand, then administered a peck. She stood back as though uncertain, color mounting slowly in her smooth cheeks.
“Aunt, why do you stare at me like this?” she asked abruptly. “Am I so—extraordinary?”
“I was just thinking how very beautiful you are, child. The photographs I have seen of you in crude monochrome haven’t done you justice in the leapt. I am also thinking I can see a lot of your poor father in you.”
“Isn’t that a trifle pointless?”
“I don’t think so. It is not uncommon for a daughter to inherit some of her parents’ characteristics— Yes, yes, indeed,” Maria mused. “I see it in all three of you. Like a cross-section of your father with part of your mother. In you, Dick, I behold your father’s reckless ambition without its hard side. In you, Janet, I see the calm repose your father cultivated in his later years. I too have that characteristic— And in you, Patricia, I see something different. Even a part of me, as I might have been had I ever been as beautiful as you.”
Patricia’s long lashes masked her insolent green eyes for a moment.
“After all,” she said, “we didn’t expect to be psycho-analyzed, Aunt. All you are seeing are two sisters and one brother. So what?”
Dick glanced at her irritably. “What in heck are you trying to do, Pat? Start a war? Come down off your pedestal! Now that you have met Aunt you can see she isn’t what you said—about pro bono publico and—and things.”
Janet said: “I have a day or two free, Aunt, before I resume my work. Perhaps you’d like me to show you around? Plenty to see, you know.”
“Yeah, Grant’s Tomb,” Patricia agreed bitterly. “Or maybe that would be too thrilling. There’s Empire State, Battery Park—”
“Ah, so here we all are!” Alice Black came in with her usual Lancers movement, gowned in black as became her widowhood. It was a point that arrested Maria’s attention for a moment. Now she came to notice it only Patricia had disdained mourning by wearing bright emerald green.
“So sorry I have been rather long, Maria dear,” Alice went on, patting her hair. “I had one or two things to do and the time just rushed away. I think time goes terribly fast when you don’t watch it, don’t you? But—but look, you must meet Janet and—.”
“We’ve been through all that, mother,” Patricia butted in. “Right now our main concern—mine anyway—is dinner. When do we start? I’m hungry....” Then her lovely young face suddenly lighted as Walters appeared with his grave pronouncement.
“Dinner is served.”
Dick asked eagerly, “May I?”—and before Maria could even guess his intention he had drawn her arm through his own. With a grave smile he added, “I hope you don’t mind? Fact of the matter is I’ve long wanted to feel what it is like to meet a Headmistress on equal terms. I sort of get a kick out of taking one in to dinner.”
Maria’s eyes moved to Pat’s elegant form preceding them. “I’m glad you don’t think I’m an old dragon, Richard.”
“Pat getting in your hair? Don’t let her. She talks like a chump at times.... Look, after dinner maybe we can get down to cases a little. I still think dad was murdered, you know. You have met the family now, seen the boss of the domestics in the form of Walters; so what next do you want to do?”
“If possible I would like to see the room where your father died.”
“Okay. You shall!”
* * * *
During dinner Maria skillfully steered the conversation away from the commonplace of her profession to the subject closest her heart. Long the expert technician in rooting out details without giving offence she began to feel almost as though she were back at Roseway with a bunch of guilty pupils on the carpet.
“I suppose,” she said, during a lull in the conversation, “that it is not very easy for us to sit here in a family group and try to forget what is uppermost in all our minds? I know I cannot.”
“You mean—poor Ralph?” Alice sighed.
“Do we have to go through it all again?” Pat groaned. “How is one to ever forget the rotten business if it’s constantly raked up and paraded?”
Maria’s cold blue eyes wandered to her. There was a venom in this girl she could not quite understand. Nor did it seem to come by her too easily. She was too intelligent, too gifted by nature, to be a natural spitfire.
“I think,” Maria said, “that you have overlooked my absence, Patricia. I have come three thousand miles for first-hand details, not only to see attorney Johnson. I want to know just why your father did such a dreadful thing. What really did happen?”
“I’m afraid most of us got the news second-hand,” Janet said quietly. “I was not here on that evening. I was giving a singing recital at the theater and Dad had promised to listen in to my concert—as indeed he always did on the first and last days of my recitals. He said he could tell by doing this how my voice had improved, or deteriorated, in the interval....” She gave a little shrug. “When I got home around midnight the thing had happened. Mother gave me the full details.... It was a terrible, dreadful shock!”
Alice took the story up. “Walters was the first to discover things were wrong. Ralph used to ring for his wine in an evening, you see. Sometimes early, sometimes late. He used to lock his door when listening to Janet.... Well, he rang for his wine all right, but when Walters arrived the library door was still locked. Walters got alarmed at length, asked me what should be done. In the end we broke in by the French window....”
Alice paused, bit her lip at her recollections.
“There was Ralph in his armchair, a bullet wound in his temple. It was horrible! Horrible! The radio was going full blast too. I remember Walters switched it off, then he sent for the police. As you are aware, however, the final verdict was suicide. It could hardly have been anything else. It seemed queer he should ring for his wine and then shoot