Holocaust House by Norbert Davis (best e books to read txt) 📕

steep stairway with a rustic natural-wood railing. Brill went on up it and stopped at the first door in the upper hallway. He was still shaky, and he edged away from the limp form of Joan Greg as a man would avoid contact with something poisonous.

“Here,” he said, pushing the door open and reaching around to snap on the light. “This—this is awful. Miss Alden is sure to complain to the office. What do you suppose ailed her?”

Doan put Joan Greg down on the narrow bed under the windows. The room was stiflingly hot. He looked at the windows and then down at Joan Greg’s flushed face and decided against opening one. While he was looking down at her, she opened her eyes and stared up at him. All the life had drained out of her round face and left it empty and bitter and disillusioned.

“What’s the trouble?” Doan asked. “Want to tell me about it?”

She turned her head slowly away from him and closed her eyes again. Doan waited a moment and then said:

“Better get undressed and into bed and sleep it off.”

He turned off the light and went out of the room, transferring the key from the inside of the lock to the outside and turning it carefully. He tried the door to make sure and then put the key in his pocket.

Brill was wringing his hands in a distracted way. “I—I can hardly bear to face Miss Alden. She will blame me. Everybody blames me! I didn’t want this responsibility… . I’ve got to go down and out-wait that scoundrel Crowley.”

“Why?” Doan asked.

Brill came closer. “He’s a fortune hunter! He didn’t get lost today! He came over here on purpose because he’s heard that Miss Alden was here! She’s an impressionable girl, and I can’t let him stay alone with her down there. The office would hold me accountable if he—if she…”

“I get it,” Doan said.

“I don’t know what to do,” said Brill. “I mean, I know Miss Alden will be sure to resent—But I can’t let him—”

“That’s your problem,” said Doan. “But I’m not supposed to protect her from people who want to make love to her—only the ones that don’t. So I’m not out-waiting our friend Crowley. I’m tired. Which is my bedroom?”

“Right there. You’ll leave your door open, Mr. Doan, in case—in case…”

“In case,” Doan agreed. “Just whistle, and I’ll pop up like any jack-in-the-box.”

“I’m so worried,” said Brill. “But I must go down and see that the scoundrel doesn’t…”

He went trotting down the steep stairs. Doan went along the hall back to the bedroom Brill had indicated. It was small and as neatly arranged as a model room in a display window, furnished with imitation rustic bed, chairs and bureau.

It, too, was stiflingly hot. Doan spotted the radiator bulking in the corner. He went over and touched it experimentally and jerked his fingers away with a whispered curse. It was so hot the water in it was burbling. Doan looked for the valve to turn it off, but there was none.

He stood looking at the radiator for some time, frowning in a puzzled way. There was something wrong about the whole setup at the lodge. It was like a picture slightly out of focus, and yet he couldn’t put his finger on any one thing that was wrong. It bothered Doan, and he didn’t like to be bothered. But it was still there. An air of intangible menace.

He discovered now that he had left his grip downstairs. He didn’t feel like going and getting it at the moment. He wanted to think about the people in the house, and he had always been able to think better lying down. He shrugged and headed for the bed. Fully dressed, he lay down on top of it and went to sleep.

CHAPTER VII. NICE NIGHT FOR MURDER

WHEN DOAN AWOKE, he awoke all at once. He was instantly alert, but he didn’t make any other motion than opening his eyes. The heat int he bedroom was like a thick oppressive blanket—fantastic and unreal against the shuffling whie of the storm outside.

Doan stayed still and wondered what had awakened him. His bedroom door was still open, and there was a dim light in the hall. A timber creaked eerily somewhere in the house. The seconds ticked off slowly and leadenly, and then a shadow moved and made a rounded silhouette in the hall in front of the bedroom door.

Doan moved his hand and closed his fingers on the slick coolness of his revolver. The shadow thickened, swaying a little, and then Joan Greg came into sight. She was moving along the hall with mincing, elaborately cautious steps. She had evidently taken Doan’s advice about going to bed. She was dressed in a green silk nightgown that contrasted with her blond hair. She stopped opposite Doan’s doorway and looked that way.

Her soft lips were open, twisted awry, and there was a dribble of saliva on her chin. Her eyes were widened in mesmerized horror. She was holding a short broad-bladed hunting knife in her right hand.

“That’s fine,” said Doan quietly. “Just stand right where you are.”

The knife made a ringing thud falling on the floor. Joan Greg drew a long shuddering breath that pulled the thin green silk taut across her breasts. The cords in her soft throat stood out rigidly.

Then she crumpled like a puppet that has been dropped. She was an awkwardly twisted heap of green silk and white flesh, with the gold of her hair glinting metallically in the light.

Doan swung cat-like off the bed and reached the doorway in two long steps. He didn’t look down at Joan Greg, but both ways along the hall. One of the doors on the opposite side moved just a trifle.

“Come out of there,” said Doan. “Quick!”

The door opened in hesitant jerks, and Crowley peered out at hi. He was wearing nothihng but a pair of blue shorts, and his wedge-shaped torso was oily with perspiration. His face was a queer yellowish green under its tan.

“So beastly hot. Couldn’t get the windows open. I thought—I heard—”

“Come here.”

Crowley moistened his lips with a nervous flick of his tongue. He came forward one step at a time. “What—what’s the matter with her?”

“Stand right there and stand still.”

Crowley’s breath whistleed between his teeth. “Blood! Look! All over her hands—”

Doan knelt down beside Joan Greg. Her hands were spread out awkwardly beside her, as though she had tried to hold them away from herself even while she fell. There was blood smeared on her fingers and streaked gruesomely across both her soft palms. Doan poked at the knife she had dropped with the barrel of his revolver.

There was blood clotted ont hem, too. On the handle and on the broad blad. Doan raised his head.

“Brill!” he called sharply.

Bed springs creaked somewhere, and Brill’s nervous voice said: “Eh? What? What?”

The springs creaked again protestingly. Brill, looking tall and lath-like in white pajamas, appeared in the open door of the bedroom next to Doan’s. His slick hair was rumpeld now, and he held one hand up to shield his eyes from the light.

“What? What is it?” His thin face began to lengthen, then, as though it had been drawn in some enormous vise. “Oh, my God,” he said in a whisper.

He came forward with the stiff, jerky steps of a sleep-walker. “Did she commit suicide?”

“I’m afraid not,” said Doan. “She’s fainted. Which is Miss Alden’s room?”

Brill stared at him in pure frozen horror. “You don’t think she—” He made a strangled noise in his throat. He turned and ran down the hall, his white pajamas flapping grotesqely. “Miss Alden! Miss Alden!”

The door at the end of the hall was hers, and Brill pounded on the panels with both fists. “Miss Alden!” His voice was raw with panic now, and he tried the knob. The door opened immediately.

“Miss—Miss Alden,” Brill said uncertainly.

“The light,” said Doan, behind him.

Brill reached inside the door and snapped the switch. There was no sound for a long time, and then Brill moaned a little.

Doan said: “Come here, Crowley. I want you where I can watch you.”

Crowley spoke in a jerky voice. “Well, Joan—I mean, Miss Greg. You can’t leave her lying—”

“Come here.”

Crowley edged inside Sheila Alden’s bedroom and backed against the wall in response to a guiding flick of Doan’s revolver barrel. Brill was standing in the center of the room with his hands up over his face.

“This will ruin me,” he said in a sick mumble. “I was going to get a partnership in the firm. They gave me full responsibility for watching out for her. Account was worth tens of thousands a year. They’ll hound me out of the state—can never practice again.” His voice trailed off into indistinguishable syllables.

This bedroom was as stiflingly hot as Doan’s had been. Sheila Alden had only a sheet over her. She was stiffly rigid on her back in the bed. Her throat had been cut from ear to ear, and the pillows under her head were soaked and sticky with blood. Her bony face looked pinched and small and empty, with her nearsighted eyes staring glassily up at the light.

Doan pointed the gun at Crowley. “You talk.”

Crowley made an effort to get back his air of British light-heartedness. “But, old chap, you can’t imagine I—”

“Yes, I can,” said Doan.

Crowley’s mouth opened and shut soundlessly.

“It comes a little clearer,” said Doan. “You were so scared you got a little rattled for a moment. Just how well do you know Joan Greg?”

Crowley’s smile was an agonized grimace. “Well, my dear chap, hardly at all. I just met the young lady today.”

“We can’t use that one.” Doan said. “You know her very well. That was what was the trouble with her. She was jealous. You’ve been living off her, haven’t you?”

“That’s not a nice thing to accuse a chap—”

“Murder’s not nice, either. You’ve been living off Joan Greg. You haven’t any more got a place on Flint Flat than I have. Have you?”

“Well…”

“No, you haven’t. Joan Greg told you that she had gotten a job as secretary to Sheila Alden and was coming up here. You knew who Sheila Alden was, and you thought that was a swell chance for you to chisel in and charm the young lady with your entrancing personality.

“You must have let Joan Greg in on it—told her you’d make a killing and split with her probably. But when it came right down to seeing you make passes at Sheila Alden, Joan Greg couldn’t take it.”

“Fantastic,” Crowley said in a stiff unnatural voice. “Utter—rot.”

“You!” said Brill, and the blood made a thick red flush in his shallow cheeks. “You rat! I’ll see you hung! I’ll—I’ll—Doan! Hold him until I get my gun!” He blundered wildly out of the room, and his feet made a wild pattering rush down the hall.

Crowley had recovered his poise now. His eyes were cold and alert and hard, watching Doan. Brill’s bedroom door slammed, and then his voice shrilled out fiercely.

“Get up! Get up, damn you! I know you’re faking! I saw your eyes open!”

There was a scuffling sound from the hall, and Joan Greg cried out breathlessly. Crowley moved against the wall.

“No,” said Doan.

Confused footsteps came closer, and Brill pushed Joan Greg roughly into the bedroom.

“There!” Brill raged. “Look at her! Look at your handiwork, damn you, you shameless little tramp!”

Joan Greg gave a stifled cry of terror. She held her shaking, blood-smeared hands out in front of her helplessly, and then she turned and ran to Crowley and hid