Meat for Murder

CHAPTER 1-1

CHAPTER 1THE DOGS AND THEIR MASTER

LAUREL saw at once that the drawbridge was not really a drawbridge, because it could not be raised or lowered. It spanned a flagstone courtyard, fifteen feet below the level of the road, where two stone benches with claw feet were chill in the February twilight. It led to an oak door in the base of the tower.

If this place had been built of stone instead of white stucco, she thought, it would look much more like a castle.

She glanced at Jeff. His eyes were following the high white brick wall at the road’s edge, a wall which seemed to run entirely around the small estate. She glanced again at the tower, just as the oak door opened inward.

Three dogs burst out; the air was suddenly shaken with barkings as they pelted toward them. The great Dane planted his paws heavily on Laurel’s shoulders and breathed foully in her face. She stood very still, staring into his amber eyes, feeling the weight of his forelegs on her shoulders, seeing the yellow teeth against the black maw which was opened in a grimace curiously like a laugh.

“Down, Pete!” said a voice. Beyond the dog’s head, a tall man in dark trousers and a white shirt was crossing the bridge toward them. “They won’t hurt you,” he called. “Shut up!” he said to the dogs. Their barking grew more frenzied. His big hand grasped the collar of the great Dane. With no apparent effort he pulled Pete away from Laurel and dropped him.

“Come in,” he said, adding, “I’ll keep the dogs outside.”

“Good,” said Jeff, and mopped his tall forehead. “I can’t say that I like dogs, or at least, not quite so many.”

The big man turned and led the way to the tower. The two black-and-white-spotted coach dogs gamboled about their legs, nudging and bumping in clumsy playfulness. The great Dane followed at a slower pace; Laurel could hear his nails clicking against the timbers of the bridge.

The big man pushed open the door and held back the dogs while she and Jeff scurried into the round hall. Laurel turned in time to notice the agility with which he closed the door in the dogs’ faces.

“Are you the writers from the University?” he asked.

They nodded.

“Mr. Falkoner will be a little late,” he went on, as he stepped to a doorway a few feet beyond the one by which they had entered. “Please wait in here.”

Laurel moved obediently toward him, and noticed that the stairway opposite the door led only down, into darkness. As she passed the tall man in the white shirt, she realized that he was very tall. She looked up into his face. It was an utterly impassive face, dark-browed, with light eyes. The eyes looked down at her without interest.

And then the room blazed at her, lighted by white lamps. She stepped onto the thick turquoise rug and it was like stepping onto a stage set. The vermilion leather chairs and the contrasting white chairs were grouped stiffly, the end tables which held the lamps were almost entirely made of glass, and most of the western wall of the room was a huge view window, framed by white curtains which seemed to stand like pillars rather than to hang. Between them was the twilight, empty and cold, with a few lights twinkling far below.

The only pictures were framed water-color sketches of stage sets, about which tiny painted figures postured. These were echoed in the room itself by the glass figurines on the end tables, glittering and brittle in the intense light pouring down upon them. Laurel saw nothing in the room which could not have been made day before yesterday.

She caught a fragment of a sentence. The big man was saying to Jeff, “I have to walk the dogs. They haven’t had much exercise today. He likes them to have plenty of exercise. He’ll be here pretty soon.”

“Mind if I play some music?” asked Jeff, his eyes on the carved chest below the arm of a white chair. Laurel saw that it was not simply a chest, but a radio-phonograph as well. And on each side of the Tudor fireplace were solid shelves of record albums.

“I don’t think there’s any needles,” the big man said. He bent over the chest to raise the lid of a tiny round box beside the turntable. “Nope. No needles. There aren’t ever any needles.”

“Oh,” said Jeff. “Never any needles.” His eyes went to those shelves of records.

“Andy has some, though,” the big man said. He smiled. It was a slow smile, which hadn’t even a nodding acquaintance with deep-set light eyes. “He’s always playing music to himself.” Wearily amused, he turned deliberately and walked out of the room into the dim round entrance hall. He turned. “I’m Jim,” he said. He vanished, to reappear at once. One hand was dark against the white wall as he stared in at them around the edge of the doorway. His eyes were fixed on Jeff. “I don’t like them either,” he said, and once more disappeared. They heard the door boom shut after him. It was not until she heard the clamor of the dogs that Laurel grasped what he meant.

“The dogs,” she said. “He doesn’t like the dogs.”

“Listen!” Jeff commanded. Quite clearly they heard his voice calling, “Here, Pete! Come on now!”

They stood quite still. The barkings became fainter, carrying to their minds a picture not without sentimental overtones. A man and his dogs, going down a lonely road at dusk. But the picture was all wrong.

Then they heard the woman scream. It was a shrill scream, and it came from somewhere within the house.

Jeff’s face wore an odd look, a blend of amazement and disbelief. “Shall we go and see what’s wrong?” he asked.

The scream came again.

“We might as well,” said Laurel equably. But her heart began to drum.

Once more in the round entrance hall, they heard for the first time sounds to indicate that they were not alone in the house. A fumble of footsteps was coming down the narrow corridor opposite the living-room. They saw a slit of light at the bottom of a door at the corridor’s far end. As they approached it, the footsteps grew louder, and just as Laurel reached out to turn the knob, she heard someone breathing hard.

Then the door was open and a blaze of brightness made her squeeze her eyes shut for an instant. When she opened them, she was looking at a kitchen, a perfectly ordinary blue-and-white kitchen. Two people were standing one at each end of the white enamel table in the center of the room. The thin woman with her back to them was tensed as though wondering which way to spring; facing them was a burly young man in a sweat shirt, his tan hair bleached by the sun. He was a glowingly healthy young man, and in one hand he was holding a carving knife.

He must have seen them, but he gave no sign. Instead, he moved a stealthy inch nearer the woman in gray. She skittered a quick step in the opposite direction. Then she seemed to sense their dumfounded presence, for she turned, saw them, made an inarticulate sound and went past them like a comet with apron strings. Her gaunt face was gray; her eyes looked glazed. In the little silence that fell, door chimes sounded sweetly.

“Who are you?” asked the big man with the knife.

“There’s a question that interests me more,” Jeff said. “Why the knife?”

The big man’s sun-singed eyebrows went innocently up. Then he grinned. It was a catlike grin, and eradicated his small green eyes.

“Why not?” he asked. Still grinning, he tossed the knife to the table, against which it clattered resoundingly. Laurel felt herself wince from the soles of her feet to the top of her head. The big man seemed to enjoy the wince.

“You were chasing that woman with it,” said Laurel.

“Yeah. Yeah, I was chasing her. She’s the cook here.”

“Why were you chasing her?” asked Laurel.

The smile left the shining face. It turned sullen. “She fed my hamburger to the dogs.”

“Oh,” said Jeff.

The big man turned his back to them and opened the refrigerator which stood just beyond the table. Laurel caught a glimpse of a great many bottles of milk and a bunch of carrots. Jeff picked up the knife.

“Cheese!” said the man at the icebox. He turned and faced them. “You’re those writers from the college.”

“That’s right,” said Jeff.

“You shouldn’t be in here.” The big man’s voice was accusing.

“Who are you?” asked Laurel.

He pointed at his unbelievably broad chest with a short tanned forefinger. “Me? I’m Tom.”

“What do you do besides chase the cook?” asked Laurel.

“I’m Mr. Falkoner’s bodyguard.” A wary look glittered in his eye. “You shouldn’t be in here. You should be in the living-room.”

“I agree,” said Jeff. He brought the knife with him.

Laurel looked back over her shoulder and saw only Tom’s broad posterior. He was bending to examine the lower shelf of the refrigerator.

A young man in tan tweeds stood up as Laurel entered the living-room, blinked when he saw the knife in Jeff’s hand. He was short and square with high shoulders and an inquiring tilt to his round brown head. Laurel found herself looking twice at his eyes. They were clear brown eyes, with heavy lids that would be good for screening private thoughts. Jeff put the knife down on a glass end table, and the young man watched him do so with a meticulous scrutiny, c*****g his head just a trifle more to one side.

“What’s the knife for?” he asked.

Jeff told him what they had just seen in the kitchen. The young man listened carefully. He made no comment, and Laurel felt that Jeff’s story had been absorbed quite easily into a mind which accommodated such happenings without any trouble at all.

“I’m waiting for Earl Falkoner,” he said. “He’s late.”

“We’re waiting for him too,” said Laurel.

“Mr. Falkoner buttonholed me at a party last night. He confronted me with the fact that I’d written a travel book. He asked me to work on a play he’s writing. I agreed. I always agree. My name’s Woody Cornell.”

“How did you get in?” asked Laurel.

“I rang the bell. A thin woman opened the door. Then she fell down the stairs. So I came in here. I don’t like it in here at all. I find myself thinking of curtains going up and down. I find myself waiting for a horde of clever people to stroll in drinking cocktails and shouting epigrams at one another.”

“That’s just what I felt!” said Laurel.

“This, by the way, is Laurel Byrd,” said Jeff. “I’m Jeff Prince.”

“Is your hair really that color?” Woody asked Laurel.

She found that one hand had gone self-consciously to the dark gold hair showing at one side of her very new hat. “Why, yes.”

“You said you’d written a travel book,” Jeff said. “Does that mean you’re an explorer?”

“People usually say, ‘Don’t tell me you’re an explorer.’ Where did Falkoner buttonhole you?”

“He didn’t,” Jeff explained. “We’ve never seen him. He telephoned the head of the English Department and asked for a couple of young people who were good at dialogue. And there we were, a couple of February graduates with majors in English. What’s this Falkoner like?”

“I can’t remember his face,” said Woody. His voice sounded puzzled, and subtly ill at ease.

“I beg your pardon,” said a quiet French voice.

A tiny man was standing in the archway. Small as he was, his brown checked coat was too short in the sleeves. His short black hair had been cut by an inept barber—it was all lengths. Laurel at once classified his face as pure Celtic, a probably inaccurate label, one which called up thoughts of a pure and sensitive race going a long way back in time and untainted by any sensible blond blood. Under the three pairs of eyes, he turned on a wide, nervous smile which showed white teeth, parted in the middle. The smile went away almost at once, leaving his face startingly solemn. Laurel was vaguely troubled because she could not decide whether the perfunctory smile was habitual, or was a deliberate gesture of subtle scorn.