The Greatest Murder Mysteries of S. S. Van Dine - 12 Titles in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). S.S. Van Dine
and the strangest feeling came over me. . . .” She closed her eyes, and an involuntary shudder swept her body. “It was as though some one were in the room, threatening me. . . .” Her voice faded away into an awed silence.
“Was the room dark?” Vance asked gently.
“Pitch-dark.” Slowly she turned her eyes to him. “That’s why I was so frightened. I couldn’t see anything, and I imagined there was a ghost—or evil spirit—near me. I tried to call out, but I couldn’t make a sound. My throat felt dry and—and stiff.”
“Typical constriction due to fright, Ada,” explained Von Blon. “Many people can’t speak when they’re frightened.—Then what happened?”
“I lay trembling for a few minutes, but not a sound came from anywhere in the room. Yet I knew—I knew—somebody, or something, that meant to harm me was here. . . . At last I forced myself to get up—very quietly. I wanted to turn on the lights—the darkness frightened me so. And after a while I was standing up beside the bed here. Then, for the first time, I could see the dim light of the windows; and it made things seem more real somehow. So I began to grope my way toward the electric switch there by the door. I had only gone a little way when . . . a hand . . . touched me. . . .”
Her lips were trembling, and a look of horror came into her wide-open eyes.
“I—I was so stunned,” she struggled on, “I hardly know what I did. Again I tried to scream, but I couldn’t even open my lips. And then I turned and ran away from the—the thing—toward the window. I had almost reached it when I heard some one coming after me—a queer, shuffling sound—and I knew it was the end. . . . There was an awful noise, and something hot struck the back of my shoulder. I was suddenly nauseated; the light of the window disappeared, and I felt myself sinking down—deep. . . .”
When she ceased speaking a tense silence fell on the room. Her account, for all its simplicity, had been tremendously graphic. Like a great actress she had managed to convey to her listeners the very emotional essence of her story.
Vance waited several moments before speaking.
“It was a frightful experience!” he murmured sympathetically. “I wish it wasn’t necess’ry to worry you about details, but there are several points I’d like to go over with you.”
She smiled faintly in appreciation of his considerateness, and waited.
“If you tried hard, do you think you could recall what wakened you?” he asked.
“No—there wasn’t any sound that I can remember.”
“Did you leave your door unlocked last night?”
“I think so. I don’t generally lock it.”
“And you heard no door open or close—anywhere?”
“No; none. Everything in the house was perfectly still.”
“And yet you knew that some one was in the room. How was that?” Vance’s voice, though gentle, was persistent.
“I—don’t know . . . and yet there must have been something that told me.”
“Exactly! Now try to think.” Vance bent a little nearer to the troubled girl. “A soft breathing, perhaps—a slight gust of air as the person moved by your bed—a faint odor of perfume. . .?”
She frowned painfully, as if trying to recall the elusive cause of her dread.
“I can’t think—I can’t remember.” Her voice was scarcely audible. “I was so terribly frightened.”
“If only we could trace the source!” Vance glanced at the doctor, who nodded understandingly, and said:
“Obviously some association whose stimulus went unrecognized.”
“Did you feel, Miss Greene, that you knew the person who was here?” continued Vance. “That is to say, was it a familiar presence?”
“I don’t know exactly. I only know I was afraid of it.”
“But you heard it move toward you after you had risen and fled toward the window. Was there any familiarity in the sound?”
“No!” For the first time she spoke with emphasis. “It was just footsteps—soft, sliding footsteps.”
“Of course, any one might have walked that way in the dark, or a person in bedroom slippers. . . .”
“It was only a few steps—and then came the awful noise and burning.”
Vance waited a moment.
“Try very hard to recall those steps—or rather your impression of them. Would you say they were the steps of a man or a woman?”
An added pallor overspread the girl’s face; and her frightened eyes ran over all the occupants of the room. Her breathing, I noticed, had quickened; and twice she parted her lips as if to speak, but checked herself each time. At last she said in a low tremulous voice:
“I don’t know—I haven’t the slightest idea.”
A short, high-strung laugh, bitter and sneering, burst from Sibella; and all eyes were turned in amazed attention in her direction. She stood rigidly at the foot of the bed, her face flushed, her hands tightly clinched at her side.
“Why don’t you tell them you recognized my footsteps?” she demanded of her sister in biting tones. “You had every intention of doing so. Haven’t you got courage enough left to lie—you sobbing little cat?”
Ada caught her breath and seemed to draw herself nearer to the doctor, who gave Sibella a stern, admonitory look.
“Oh, I say, Sib! Hold your tongue.” It was Chester who broke the startled silence that followed the outbreak.
Sibella shrugged her shoulders and walked to the window; and Vance again turned his attention to the girl on the bed, continuing his questioning as if nothing had happened.
“There’s one more point, Miss Greene.” His tone was even gentler than before. “When you groped your way across the room toward the switch, at what point did you come in contact with the unseen person?”
“About half-way to the door—just beyond that centre-table.”
“You say a hand touched you. But how did it touch you? Did it shove you, or try to take hold of you?”
She shook her head vaguely.
“Not exactly. I don’t know how to explain it, but I seemed to walk into the hand, as though it were outstretched—reaching for me.”
“Would you say it was a large hand or a small one? Did you, for instance, get the impression of strength?”
There was another silence. Again the girl’s respiration quickened, and she cast a frightened glance at Sibella, who stood staring out into the black, swinging branches of the trees in the side yard.
“I don’t know—oh, I don’t know!” Her words were like a stifled cry of anguish. “I didn’t notice. It was all so sudden—so horrible.”
“But try to think,” urged Vance’s low, insistent voice. “Surely you got some impression. Was it a man’s hand, or a woman’s?”
Sibella now came swiftly to the bed, her cheeks very pale, her eyes blazing. For a moment she glared at the stricken girl; then she turned resolutely to Vance.
“You asked me down-stairs if I had any idea as to who might have done the shooting. I didn’t answer you then, but I’ll answer you now. I’ll tell you who’s guilty!” She jerked her head toward the bed, and pointed a quivering finger at the still figure lying there. “There’s the guilty one—that snivelling little outsider, that sweet angelic little snake in the grass!”
So incredible, so unexpected, was this accusation that for a time no one in the room spoke. A groan burst