A Treasury of Stories (Collection of novelettes and short stories)

“I played her older sister,” she sniffled, “although they really had a nerve to cast me in an older part like that. I had to take anything I could get. I was in that rocker there on the set, facing her way. I’m supposed not to approve of the fellow she’s intending to run off with, but all I do to show it is to keep rocking back and forth. She had her back to me, over at the window — I tell you I was looking right at her and all of a sudden, fffi, she was on fire from head to foot! As quickly as that, and for no earthly reason that I could make out! All I had time to do was jump back out of the way myself—”

“You would,” I thought, but without saying so.

She gave me a sort of a come-on smile and said: “You’re not a bad-looking guy at all for a detective.”

“That’s what my wife and eighteen kids tell me,” I squelched her.

“Hmph” she said, and went over to chisel a drink from Stormann.

Just then they sent word in that, impossible as it sounded, Meadows was still breathing. She was going fast, though — just a matter of minutes now. They’d given her morphine to kill the pain.

“Is she conscious or out?” I asked.

“Semi-conscious.”

“Quick then, let me have a look at her before she goes!”

It was a slim chance, but maybe she, herself, knew what or who had done it. Maybe she, alone, of all of them, had seen what caused it and hadn’t been able to prevent it in time to save herself.

On my way out, I collared the guard, who was back at the door again keeping out the crowd of extras and employees who had heard the news.

“Consider yourself a deputy,” I said to him in an undertone. “See that they all stay where they are until I get back. Whatever you do, see that nothing’s touched on that set — not even a match stick. Keep everything just the way it is—”

It was a monstrous thing they showed me in that bed, dark as the room was. Without eyes, without ears, without nose, without any human attribute. An oversized pumpkin-head, a Hallowe’en goblin, made of yards and yards of interlaced gauze bandaging. It stood out whitely in the greenish dimness cast by the lowered shades. A crevice between the bandages served as a mouth. Atop the sheets were two bandaged paws. She was conscious, but partly delirious from the heat of the burns and “high” from the morphine that kept her from feeling the pain in her last moments. The faithful Nellie was there beside her, silent now and with her forehead pressed to the wall.

I bent close to the muffled figure, put my face almost up against the shapeless mound that was Martha Meadows, to try to catch the garbled muttering which came through the bandages. I couldn’t make it out. “Martha Meadows,” I begged, “Martha Meadows, what caused the accident?”

The muttering stopped, broke off short. I couldn’t tell whether she’d heard me or not. I repeated the question. Then suddenly I saw her head move slowly from side to side, slowly and slightly. “No — accident,” she mumbled. Then she repeated it a second time, but so low I couldn’t catch it any more. A minute later her head had lolled loosely over to the side again and stayed that way. She’d gone.

I went outside and stood there, lost in thought. I hadn’t found out what I’d come to find out — what did it — but I’d found out something else, much more important. “No — accident” meant it had been done purposely. What else could it mean? Or was I building myself a case out of thin air? Delirium, morphine — and a shaking of the head in her death-throes that I’d mistaken for “no”? I tried to convince myself I was just looking for trouble. But it wouldn’t work. I had an answer for every argument. She’d known what I was asking her just now. She hadn’t been out of her mind.

Death will strike during unconsciousness or sleep, maybe, but never during delirium. The mind will always clear just before it breaks up, even if only an instant before. And hadn’t she gotten threatening letters and asked for protection? Anyway, I told myself, as long as there was a doubt in my mind, it was up to me to track it down until there wasn’t any doubt left — either one way or the other. That was my job. I was going to sift this thing down to the bottom.

Nellie came out. She wasn’t bellowing now any more like she had been on the set. “They musta been casting her in heaven today, but they sure picked a mis’able way to notify her,” she said with a sort of suppressed savagery. “I’m gonna buy me a bottle a’ gin and drink it down straight. If it don’t kill me the fust time, I’ll keep it up till it do. She’ll need a maid on the set up there fust thing and I ain’t gonna leave her flat!” She shuffled off, shaking her head.

I was hard-hearted enough to go after her and stop her. “That’s all right about heaven, auntie, but you don’t happen to know of anyone down below here who had a grudge against her, do you?”