RGL e-Book Cover
Based on an image created with Microsoft Bing software
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.
RGL e-Book Cover
Based on an image created with Microsoft Bing software
She stared at it with a feeling of terrible familiarity.
Freed of a murder charge, a young movie actress
stumbles a second time into an incriminating scene.
THE temperature was so high in the city that someone tried to fry an egg on the pavement. The baked air was stagnant and reeked of petrol. The traffic shrieked in competition with the din of a pneumatic road drill. Yet Hermione Heath, the young film actress, drew a breath of rapture as she gazed at the squalid street.
She had just left the Old Bailey where she had been on trial tor murder.
"No," she protested, as her agent beckoned to a waiting taxi. "I want to walk. I want to feel free."
"And you want to escape the cameras, don't you?" he asked. "Directly the pressmen find out we've fooled them, they'll be swarming back through this alley."
Hermione—it was not her real name, but she had grown used to being called by it—leaped instantly into the cab.
"This seems all queer and wrong somehow," she said in a troubled voice, as her agent drew down the blinds. "You've always tried to get me publicity."
"Not this kind of publicity, my dear."
"You mean—?"
As he did not reply, she nerved herself to ask another question.
"Will this affect my career?"
"I'll tell you that later," he replied. "There's a clause in your contract which covers this—kind of thing. That will let them out, if they want to get rid of you."
"Why should they? I've been proved Innocent."
"Yes, you've been very lucky."
"Lucky?" Her voice broke. "I wouldn't wish my worst enemy my luck. But I mustn't talk about it. I must forget."
In spite of her determination, as she sat back in her corner, with closed eyes, her mind was flooded by unhappy memories. She had been a victim of the most damning circumstantial evidence that fate could contrive against an innocent person. Thoughtless words and unfortunate incidents had dovetailed together to lend ominous significance to her discovery of the body of the murdered financier.
She had gone gaily to his Westend flat, expecting to find a cocktail party. Instead, she found her host lying on the floor, shot through the heart.
The shock was so severe that she was instantly panic-stricken, when she incriminated herself with every possible indiscretion. After she had left her blood-stained fingerprints to testify against her and further advertised her identity by dropping some personal property, she ran away. Later, she was numbed to a state of menial collapse when her memory could not function properly... She had endured weeks of torturing suspense. She had lost all hope. She had gone through hell.
Today, she was free. And now—in the first flush of liberty—she faced a new threat, the ruin of her career.
Although she was only a starlet, she was rising steadily in her profession. It absorbed her to the exclusion of other interests, so that she could not contemplate life apart from the studio.
"If I'm going to be thrown out," she said, "they might as well hang me and call it a day."
"Keep your chin up," advised her agent.
Luckily, there was no further call on her fortitude. When they reached the offices of the film company, the personage who controlled Hermione's destiny received her with a smile and extended hands.
"This is splendid to see you again." he said. "Now don't begin to cry. I want to discuss your new picture."
After this promising beginning, he broke the news that, although she could not play lead, he might use her in a minor part, but her chance would come later, if she justified his confidence.
"Best to lot some of the mud settle." he said. "We must consider the susceptibilities of the public. That chap was such a stinking character."
Although the counsel for the defense had demonstrated the slight nature of Hermione's acquaintance with the murdered financier, she knew that it was impolitic to protest. She was forced to eat crow, while the chief laid down the law.
"In future, no wild parties, no car-offenses, no more shady friends. We may have to sell you again to the public. Remember, even the smell of a second scandal would finish you. And now. what about taking a real holiday out of the public lens?"
"Switzerland is quiet in the summer." suggested the agent.
"Fix it ... Goodby, my dear."
Although she was dismissed, Hermione lingered to ask a question.
"You do believe I'm innocent?"
"Of course ... only don't do it again."
His words rang in her cars, making her unduly sensitive to the congratulations of her friends.
The next afternoon, when she boarded the Continental express at Victoria, she felt acutely self-conscious because her departure was so purposely Inconspicuous.
THE first week slipped quickly and happily away. After her
long ordeal, she was grateful merely to be alive amid such beauty
and peace. No one recognized her or asked for her autograph. Most
of the guests at her hotel were drifters—stopping for only
a night or two.
Wearing shorts and dark sun glasses, she spent her time alone—either climbing sleep, wooded heights to reach an "Aussicht," or mooning beside the jade-green river. Presently, the solitude which had been so healing to her shattered nerves, began to lose its benefit. With restored bodily health, her mind began to work again.
"Don't do it again."
The sentence rang in her ears as she went over and over the wretched business of her trial, until the injustice of her position seared her sense of rectitude. It seemed to her that, even on this holiday, she was still being penalized for a crime she had not committed.
It was as though she had been struck by lightning—unexpected, unmerited, unexplained.
"Why should it have happened to me?" she asked herself. "I've done nothing to deserve this."
She had grown so used to regard herself as invisible, that it came as a surprise when she realized that one person had guessed her identity. Their first meeting took place on a mountain railway. At first, she barely noticed the red-haired young man. with bare knobby Scotch knees, who sat on the opposite scat of her carriage.
She was gazing at the range of great snow mountains glittering against a deep blue sky, when the young man spoke to her.
"Aren't you Hermione Heath?"
She hesitated, as she did not wish to be pestered by a fan, but before she could reply, the young man went on.
"I was furious with you over your trial. You mucked up everything as though you were working in with the cops to give them a case in the bag. Surely you know the elementary rules on finding a corpse?"
"No." gasped Hermione. "W-what are they?"
"First, touch nothing. Second, ring the police. Haven't you read any detective thrillers?"
"No."
"Then may heaven have mercy on your soul. You almost deserve all you got. I write them. And what's the good of me trying to educate the public when you deliberately work for a conviction?"
His abuse was incense to Hermione and exhilarated her more than the challenge of the snow mountains. Here, at least, was someone who recognized her for what she really was, a blundering fool, but innocent.
Hermione answered his questions with real relief. In spite of his blunt words, his hazel eyes held sympathy and understanding.
"What's your real name?"
"Amy Barker."
"Hermione wins with me. My name is Andrew Mackintosh. It ought to register—but it won't. I'm staying at your hotel, although you've not noticed me."
"I've noticed no one. I've kept thinking of—"
"I know. You kept thinking of poor little Hermione Heath. You've got to forget the little fool ... Don't you hate your face?"
"Should I?" Her voice was startled. "What's wrong with it?"
"Definitely nothing. But I know I should get dead sick of mine splashed all over the screen."
"I don't. I'm clear on that point anyway. Film-acting Is under my skin and it's also my big gamble. I spent my last shilling in dramatic training. It's mighty important for me to cash in on it."
"I understand. In fact, this holiday must put you together again. But it won't, unless you forget everything ... Suppose we stick around together?"
During a week of perfect weather which followed their first meeting, they spent most of their time in the open air. With the object of giving her no time to think, Andrew ruthlessly took the pampered starlet for stiff mountain scrambles. He made her eat plain picnic lunches, perched on a boulder beside some boiling glacier-fed river.
"You get to know a person better in one day spent in the country than if you met her in drawing rooms for a year," he explained.
His exact word was "matey"—but he looked at her with the eyes of a lover.
He did not let her relax until his last afternoon, when they made a tour of the lake in the little steamer.
Hermione watched the shores with the sensation of being in a happy dream. There were fantastic houses and gardens where late crimson roses shed their petals and strangely remote people drank tea in the dense shade of chestnuts.
Châteaux with pointed towers and flights of stone steps leading down to deep peacock-blue water; cream-and-coral villas, spun about with delicately wrought-iron verandas and flights of filigree stairs which spiralled from balcony to balcony.
Presently the residences were spaced at longer distances as they reached a desolate area of reeds and bushes, where the river flowed swiftly into the lake. Near its outlet stood a small, white-shuttered villa, apparently encircled by a thick girdle of closely-clipped shrubs, which overhung the water.
"It's like a house built of toy bricks," exclaimed Hermione. "And the green stuff is like artificial moss. It fascinates me. I can't imagine anyone living there."
"I expect it's a weekend residence," exclaimed Andrew. "Most of these places arc shut."
On the second-class deck two women were also talking of the villa.
"That belongs to a rich business man," one informed her companion in rapid French. "He manufactures chocolate. Or it might be watches. That's his 'nid d'amour.' Always a lady. He is very attractive, you understand."
Although she could not hear, at that moment. Hermione suddenly shivered, as though a brain wave had touched her dormant memory of the murdered London financier.
"Don't look like that," said Andrew sharply.
"I can't help it," she confessed. "I'm afraid of the past. But I am more afraid of the future. That terrible thing happened to me in one second—just by opening a door. It can happen again."
"It can't. By the law of averages, it is impossible. Lightning never strikes the same place twice."
"That's not true. I remember reading about a woman who had just won a prize in a sweep and the account said that she had also held a winning ticket in the previous draw. When you consider the millions of tickets, that seems impossible. But it happened ... Andrew, why did this happen to me?"
"Perhaps to test you." he replied. "If we had only soft pleasant experiences, we should degenerate to spiritual slugs. These tough breaks develop initiative, resource, courage."
"But all I did was to crash. I'm ashamed. I'm so used to being directed—told to do this or that ... Oh, Andrew. I'm going to miss you."
That evening she went with him to the station. While they waited for the train, she looked so unhappy, that he tried to cheer her.
"I shall be at Victoria to meet you soon. We're not going to let this drop are we?"
"I shall count the days."
"Good." His face grew suddenly grave. "Hermione. I've been thinking about what you said this afternoon. I want you to promise me that if you are ever in a fix, like the last, you will fade away at once. Scram—disappear into the blue and leave no traces behind."
"I promise. But, of course, it won't happen again."
"No. You got me rattled by suggesting it. You see, you couldn't risk a second show-up."
"No. I should be finished in films."
"Much worse than that. A repetition of the first affair might be regarded as proof of homicidal mania. I'm frightening you, but you frightened me first. So remember this. You've brains inside your head, not pulp. Use them—and don't crash again."
SHE missed him even more than she feared. It was difficult to
force enthusiasm for the beauty which surrounded her now that the
human element was lacking. The mountains were beginning to assume
the aspect of prison walls, when her holiday came to a premature
end. The circumstances were exhilarating, for London came on the
hotel telephone just as she was finishing her coffee on the
veranda. "London" proved to be her agent, who told her that
production was to begin immediately on the picture which had been
shelved owing to her trial. The choice of lead lay between
another promising young actress and herself.
"I must be frank." he warned her. "Clara's their best bet. No scandal about her. But give them all you've got and they're bound to admit it's your part. Come by tonight's express as you won't have to change. I'll meet you at Victoria and take you out to the studio for the test. Don't let me down, or it will be a walkover for Clara."
When he rang off, Hermione felt dizzy with excitement. She rushed about, making arrangements for her departure, but there was little to do. After every detail had been discussed, there stretched before her most of the morning and all the afternoon.
"I've got to walk, or I shall blow up," she thought.
She decided to take the steamer to the town at the end of the lake and then walk on to the first village, where she would await its arrival on its homeward trip.
When she reached the little medieval town, she loitered over her lunch, but, in her Impatience, the hands of her watch seemed to crawl. It was a relief to set off along the lake-promenade, lined with small chestnut trees, beginning to brown. She walked quickly and got to the village, to find the quay deserted. The steamer was not due for some time, so she began to explore.
It interested her to see the backs of the houses, or rather, their entrances. Many were impressive, with glass corridors or covered courtyards leading to the front door. Their gardens, too, were beautiful, with vivid emerald grass and brilliant flowers.
While she was admiring a border of dahlias in the garden of a villa, named "Mon Asile" an Alsatian dog watched her through the green-and-gilt railings. Having decided that she had no design on the family security, he butted the gate open with his head and made it plain to her that she might take him for a walk.
"No, my lad," she told him, shaking her head. "You're pedigree, by the look of you. I'm taking no chances. Some one might think I was enticing you away."
As he continued to plead, she weakly compromised by throwing her stick for him to retrieve. Apparently he could not get too much of this game, which lasted for several hectic minutes, but he behaved like a gentleman when, at last, she took her property from him and ordered him not to follow.
Leaving him sitting obediently inside his own garden, she swung along the deserted shore road. On one side was a 12-foot wall, topped with the trees of an estate—on the other, the sheet of sunlit water. Her objective was the river, which was boiling out in a greenish-white stream over the sapphire lake.
Presently she reached the unreal little villa, encircled with shrubs, which had impressed her with such a sense of artifice.
"It's either hollow inside and stuffed with shavings," she told herself, "or it's a block of solid plaster. No, I'm wrong. They've got a telephone there—and it's ringing like mad. Why doesn't someone answer it?"
The sound of the bell continued to whir in her ears as she picked her way down a path between willows and rank undergrowth, in order to reach the river. Soon, however, the track came to an end amid a stretch of reedy-swamp, with gaps of water, so that she was forced to turn back.
To her surprise, the telephone bell was still ringing when she came again to the white villa. It was obvious that no one was in the house and she marveled at the patience, or laxity, of the exchange. She lingered to gaze at the shuttered windows, when, suddenly, she heard the piteous wail of an animal.
"Oh. dear," she cried in dismay. "They've left a cat locked in and it's only Monday today. It'll be there for days ... What on earth can I do? I can't break in. It's against the law."
Although the unanswered telephone stressed the fact that the villa was deserted, she rang the bell and knocked loudly upon the door. No one came, but she did not expect admission. Only the cat scented rescue, for its mewing sounded closer, while she could hear it scratching the panels.
It was against every humanitarian scruple to leave an animal to starve to death, yet the position seemed hopeless to Hermione. A glance at her watch told her that she had time, but little to spare.
At that moment to add to her worry, a further complication ensued. She felt a tug at her stick and turned to see the Alsatian dog waiting expectantly in the road. He had trailed her from "Mon Asile." and now—with insane optimism—had chosen this moment to ask her for another game.
"You keep out of this," she said, surrendering her stick to keep him quiet. "Oh, I wish I could get in."
IN desperation and without the faintest hope of forcing an
entry, she turned the handle of the door. To her intense surprise
it was neither bolted nor locked. While she was pushing it open,
a small gray-and-white cat shot through the aperture and dashed
into the road, evidently bound for his home in the village.
Hermione remained on the step gazing before her. Instead of a darkened interior, she saw a gleaming black-and-white marble hall, with glossy buttercup walls and yellow rugs. The light streamed in through the door of the salon, which was Just beyond. Only a section of it was visible, revealing the telephone on the floor.
She was compelled by strong curiosity to peep in at the salon. She reminded herself that not a soul was near. Closing the front door to keep the dog out she approached the salon.
It was full of sunshine, while the walls and ceiling were mottled with dancing water reflections from the lake. The unshuttered windows were hung with ice-blue satin curtains, patterned with white roses—the gilt Empire furniture was covered with royal blue-and-white striped brocade. Everything was gay and brilliant—with the exception of a man's body, lying outstretched on the carpet.
She stared at it with a feeling of terrible familiarity. Tills seemed a colored and almost cheerful version of her recent grim experience. A sunny room. Instead of the dark stuffy flat— a debonair corpse. In place of the other horror with his gross body and distorted face.
The dead man was slim and elegant with silver hair and black eye-brows. He wore a tussore suit with a brown silk shirt and socks. A tangerine carnation was in his buttonhole and a monocle had fallen from his eye. There were signs of a struggle, but on his mouth was the ghost of a smile—protesting and surprised—as though his visitor had gone rather too far beyond the limit of good taste.
Hermione stared—petrified by the sight of blood oozing from a wound in his heart. At that moment, her dominant sensation was incredulity, although—in itself—the happening was not altogether improbable. Any dissolute person, who plays also with souls, may run the risk of violent death, while it follows logically, that some one must discover his body. The amazing element centered In the fact that she—Hermione Heath—should be the victim of an extraordinary and almost impossible coincidence.
Lightning had struck the same place twice.
As she realized it, she felt about to be overwhelmed by an avalanche of terror which would sweep away her wits, as in the first catastrophe. But even while she trembled on the brink of panic, she remembered Andrew.
He had warned her that she must not risk a second scandal and he had told her what she must do. She must touch nothing and go away immediately.
Merely to think of him strengthened her with the knowledge of invisible comradeship. She lost the sense of being overwhelmed by Fate's betrayal as she regained mastery over her nerves. Checking an impulse to stop the maddening ringing of the telephone, she hurried from the room.
JUST as she reached the vestibule, she heard a ring, followed
by a double knock upon the front door. The desperation of the
crisis cleared her brain, so that she guessed what had happened.
The bell had been ringing for some time and the exchange
operator, when she realized that something was out of order, had
rung up the police station.
The man who had been sent to investigate the mystery must not find her in the house. She glanced at the closed windows of the salon and decided that the official might enter while she was trying to open one of them. The white marble staircase was nearer, so she sped noiselessly over the thick black carpet up to the shuttered gloom of the landing.
Trembling violently, she waited for him to make the discovery... Then suddenly the shrilling of the bell was cut off as the official talked to the police station.
She strained her ears to listen. Fortunately, he did not speak in a patois, so that she was able to understand the drift of his statement.
"Herr Silbermann shot in his summer residence. The disorder indicates murder. Come at once to watch the house from the outside, so that no one can leave it. The miscreant may be hiding. No, I cannot search yet, lest some one should slip out, while I am upstairs. Here, I can guard the front door as well as the body. Stop anyone you meet on the road who is running, or hurrying, or agitated, or who is at all suspicious."
Hermione bit her lip and clenched her hands. She was caught in a trap. But there might be a way out. There must be one. She thought she remembered a spidery iron stair which spiralled from the top veranda down to the garden. If she could descend unseen, she might hide in the shrubbery until the relief police reached the villa—and then choose the psychological moment to make a dash for the quay.
Holding herself in dread lest a board should creak, she opened a door. Her heart sank at the darkness within. If the upper story were still closed, it would be difficult to unshutter a window without betraying her presence by a noise. But she had to go on. As her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, she groped her way safely through a bathroom to the principal bedroom.
To her joy, the windows were open, so that it, too, swam with sunshine and water reflections. Drawing aside an orchid-pink satin curtain, she stole cautiously out.
In that moment of exposure, she felt certain that someone must see her from the lake. It was possible, too, that the spiral stairs were visible from a corner of the salon, where the policeman guarded the body. But although she knew that she was incriminating herself more deeply with every action, she crept down the steps and reached the ground.
WITHOUT giving herself time to falter, she dived underneath
the nearest shrub. If she could crawl under its shelter to the
left of the villa, she could reach the road without having to
pass the open front door.
At first, however, the task seemed impossible. It was difficult to make any progress through the dense mass of interlacing twigs. She was stifled by heat and lack of air and almost choked by layers of dust and rubbish. To test her endurance still further was the additional fear of making any sound.
Inch by inch, foot by foot, she dragged herself through the hedge until she reached a shrub behind which she could crouch while she waited. It was then she glanced at her watch and realized that she could catch the steamer only by making a sprint.
It was the last boat back to the town where she was staying. If she lost it, she would also lose the express back to England and her chance of making a test for the new picture. Any attempt to hire a car in the village would attract attention to her presence as a stranger when the least publicity would be fatal. No one had seen her come—and no one must see her go, except in impeccable circumstances.
Even as the thoughts were whirling through her mind, she noticed that the dog was nosing among the bushes, as though he were on her trail. He was bound to find her, then he would give away the secret of her hiding place.
But his presence made no difference now except to precipitate the crisis. Circumstances forced her out into the open to make a dash for the steamer. On her way she was bound to be stopped and questioned by the police. The passport, which—in accordance with the regulations of her regional ticket—she carried always with her, would be examined and her identity revealed.
Unless she could think of some, expedient whereby she could run without attracting attention, it was indeed the end of Hermione Heath.
In that moment she knew that she was being tested. Her whole future depended on her own initiative and brains. No one could direct her now.
Andrew's phrase, "a spiritual slug," stung her memory as she wrestled with the psychological aspect of the situation.
Just as the dog leaped toward her in joyful welcome, the inspiration came.
"The dog. If I saw a man running in the street, I should turn and stare. But I should take no notice of a man running with a dog."
LEAPING over the low parapet of the garden, she snatched up
her stick where the Alsatian had dropped it and held it out in
invitation to him to follow. She had two bits of luck, she was
still wearing shorts with a sleeveless jersey—and the road
curved just beyond the villa, so that any one around the bend
could not see the point where she began her run.
Shouting encouragement to the delighted dog, she raced at top speed, while snatches of "The Charge of the Light Brigade" floated through her mind. "Shot and Shell."
Two men, wearing dark caped uniforms and peaked caps, cycled toward her. "Boldly they rode." She was passing them. They did not stop her, but they might be following her. She dared not turn her head to find out, but dashed on. "Into the jaws of death."
Another policeman—this time, on foot—came around the next corner. He looked keenly at her and she heard him stop, as though to look after her. "Into the gates of hell ... On ... On ..."
She had run herself nearly to the point of collapse. Her heart was leaping—her lungs felt punctured—when suddenly she saw below her the quay and the little steamer. The gangway was on the point of being hauled away, but she dashed across It just in time.
The paddles churned the water and the boat steamed away. Hot and panting, Hermione stood on deck and watched the shore glide past her. The Alsatian was trotting back to "Mon Asile" and his dinner. Under the trees, people drank afternoon tea.
A sense of deep relief enfolded. She knew that she was safe. It was as though she had presence of a day in the near future, when she was to read in her paper a Continental item which stated that the police had arrested the murderer of the late Herr Silbermann.
Even then, in the villa of the deceased, the policeman was questioning his colleagues.
"You met no one on the road?"
"No one," was the reply. "Only the priest on his bicycle and a kennel-maid exercising a hound."
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.