Free Escape the Night by Mignon G. Eberhart Page A

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    They got back to the cottage. Amanda and Sutton, and Leda and Johnny Blagden were there—pale-faced, questioning, horrified. Somebody from the coast patrol had telephoned too. There was no hope of reclaiming the body that night, or even in several days.
    “Sometimes it’s a week or two,” said Sutton, his kind, rather weak face very white. “Sissy, did it happen very suddenly? I hope Luisa didn’t have time to—know.”
    She didn’t remember answering. The police were talking to Dave Seabrooke; they had spoken to Sutton sympathetically. As Johnny Blagden said, shaking his round, bald head, there was nothing anybody could do. Leda stood by the fire, wrapped in a fur coat, listening and exclaiming, her blue eyes round and shocked. They’d better eat, Amanda said, finally and decisively. Leda and Johnny had been coming to dinner anyway; there was food enough for Jem and Dave, too. Everyone fell in gratefully with her matter-of-fact suggestion and filed out to the two cars, the Blagden coupe and Sutton’s car, that choked the little drive.
    “I’ll go along with Leda and Johnny,” said Dave, and put his hand on Serena’s arm, detaining her momentarily. In the eerie twilight his thin face looked tired and strained. “That business of the laboratory—do you mind not telling them? Not tonight, at least. They’d talk so much,” he said wearily.
    “I’ll not tell them. Dave, I’m so sorry.” It sounded and was inadequate. Jem said: “We’re riding with Amanda, Sissy.” They got into the back seat together, and Jem had brought Pooky, a warm, panting little load which he put on the seat between them.
    Serena wondered what had happened to the two policemen. They had quietly disappeared but their motor bicycles were still at the edge of the drive.
    Jem answered her unspoken thought. He lighted a cigarette, and presently, when they were on the highway, leaned forward. “Anderson said they’d be up after awhile,” he said to Sutton and Amanda on the front seat. “Is that all right? They want to talk to you.”
    “Who—oh, the police?” asked Amanda. She was still in riding breeches and shirt, and had pulled a heavy polo coat around her. Her face was without make-up, except for her mouth, and looked drawn and tired and without her usual vitality. She’d heard the news, Serena remembered her saying, when she returned to the house and hadn’t stopped for anything but to get Sutton and the car.
    “Yes,” said Sutton. “I know Anderson. Why do they want to question us?”
    There was a short pause in the darkness of the car. Then Jem said in an extraordinarily quiet voice: “Hang onto the wheel, Sutton. This is going to be kind of a shock. The fact is Luisa seems to have had some kind of bug about—well, about being murdered.”
    The car gave a lurch, Amanda gave a queer little scream; Sutton got the car back on the road. “What on earth …!” he began.
    “It seems she phoned them yesterday. Said somebody was trying to murder her. Wouldn’t say who or why she thought so, but asked for police protection.”
    “My God! Nobody wanted to murder her! What did she mean? She—what’d they do?” That was Sutton. Amanda said nothing.
    Jem said: “Well, that’s what they told us. They thought she was having a—well, brainstorm, Anderson said. Didn’t believe it. Then she called up in a little while and said she was mistaken.”
    Sutton drove on in silence. Amanda still said nothing. Serena, with the cold and the horror, was again shivering a little. Pooky was cold too and crept onto her lap.
    They went on slowly, feeling their way through the night, with the small parking lights making only a faint glow ahead. Nobody spoke while they climbed through darkness and fog. They turned onto the level road leading to the house before Sutton spoke. “That’s not like Luisa,” he said suddenly and rather harshly. They stopped at the gate. The lights of the following car crept feebly out of the gloom behind