The Ordeal of Mrs. Snow Read online

  The Ordeal of Mrs. Snow

  And Other Stories

  Patrick Quentin

  THE ORDEAL OF MRS. SNOW

  Mrs. Adelaide Snow heard her niece’s voice and then Bruce Mendham’s laugh in the hall. Quickly she picked up a book and pretended to read. She didn’t want Lorna to think she was waiting up for her, that she was being nosy or uneasy about this frighteningly whirlwind romance.

  The two young people came into the living room.

  “Aunt Addy, you’re still up.”

  “Is it late, dear?”

  “Late! Early! How do I know? I don’t even know what year it is!” Lorna ran to her and threw her arms around her. “Oh, Aunt Addy, darling, Bruce has asked me to marry him.”

  Bruce Mendham, hovering behind her, smiled his most ingratiating smile. “I hope you approve, Mrs. Snow.”

  Mrs. Snow had prepared herself for this moment, and there were more than enough reasons for disapproval. It was hardly a month since they’d met Bruce, coming back from Europe on the Ile de France. They knew practically nothing about his background, his way of life. He had no job, no money. Mrs. Snow, from the promptings of a conventional wealthy upbringing, had intended to emphasize all these points, but now Lorna’s face completely disarmed her.

  She had never seen such pure, undiluted happiness. The joy radiating from the girl swept all cold, commonsensical objections aside. Bliss! thought Mrs. Snow in wonder. How seldom it comes, and what a beautiful thing it is!

  The fact that an odd sense of foreboding still lurked in her meant nothing. Mrs. Snow was a sensible woman, all too conscious of her own weaknesses. She knew that in the loneliness after her husband’s death her love for her niece had become much too possessive. Surely she would have felt this same reluctance, this same hostility towards any other man who wanted to take Lorna from her. What were the real, human objections to Bruce, anyway? He was handsome, good-natured, immensely kind. Wasn’t it just an ugly demon of jealousy that made her find him a little too good-natured, a little too handsome, a little too—plausible?

  Triumphant in her victory over herself, Mrs. Snow smiled at her niece. “Darling, I’m delighted.”

  “Oh, Aunt Addy, I knew you would be. Bruce was terribly worried because he had no money, no job or anything. But I told him he didn’t know you. I told him you’d be an angel. Oh, Aunt Addy, darling, I love you so much.”

  Already, thought Mrs. Snow wryly, she was reaping the rewards of unselfishness.

  “I’ll get a job, of course, Mrs. Snow,” said Bruce.

  “I’ve got an idea about that, too,” broke in Lorna. “You know how you’re always saying you should have someone to take care of your affairs, Aunt Addy. Bruce is wonderful with figures and efficiency and things like that. Think! If you hired him we could all three of us go on living here. There’d be no break. You and me and Bruce …”

  The bribe! thought Mrs. Snow. But in spite of herself, contentment began to flood through her.

  “Bruce working for me? That may be an excellent idea. We’ll think about it.”

  But Mrs. Snow knew she wasn’t going to think about it. It was already settled. The pattern of the future was fixed.

  Somewhere, deep in her mind, a little voice was whispering: Are you sure you haven’t betrayed yourself—and Lorna?

  But the voice was so faint that she could scarcely catch the words.

  It was eighteen months later that Mrs. Snow lost her sapphire ring. She was sure she had put it down in the living room when she and Lorna and Bruce had been sitting there after dinner. But no one could find it.

  The episode wasn’t very important. The ring was insured, and it had no sentimental value. But Mrs. Snow hated mysteries. After breakfast next morning, she had the living room turned inside out, with no result. Neither Lorna nor Bruce could offer any explanation. And then, because Sylvia Emmett arrived to take Lorna out to Long Island, the search was abandoned.

  Bruce, who was joining Lorna at the Emmetts’ the next day for the Labor Day weekend, stayed behind because there was some work to do. He and Mrs. Snow lunched together, and all through lunch Bruce went on about the ring.

  “I can’t understand what could have happened to it. It’s so absurd. How can it have vanished into thin air?”

  Suddenly, without warning, the idea came to Mrs. Snow: Isn’t Bruce being too innocent about all this?

  It was terrifying to her how that one little idea was able to shatter the entire façade that she had, for Lorna’s sake, so carefully constructed. Ever since the wedding, the return from the honeymoon, she had been determined to like and trust her nephew-in-law. If there had been times when he had seemed insincere, conceited, even cunning, she had blinded herself to them. She had thought she had succeeded almost completely in seeing him as Lorna saw him.

  But now, once the idea of the ring had come, she realized how much she had been fooling herself. She had never liked Bruce; she had never trusted him. This proved it. For here she was, although she had given him full control over her business affairs, calmly considering him capable of so sordid a petty dishonesty as stealing her ring.

  For a moment, Mrs. Snow felt dizzy, and before she could control herself another insidious thought jumped into her head. Several times that year her banker, Hilary Prynne, who had been her late husband’s closest friend, had jocularly accused her of extravagance. It hadn’t seemed to her that the household had been spending more than usual, and she had dismissed Hilary’s remarks as mere playful badinage. But what—what if Bruce had been tampering with the accounts as well?

  Mrs. Snow hated herself for these unwanted suspicions. She felt unclean, as if she were perversely desirous of destroying Lorna’s happiness. But she was clearheaded enough to know that a suspicion, however unjust, should be checked before it is dismissed.

  After lunch, she went up to the study and called the bank. Fortunately, Hilary was in Baltimore until Friday, so it was easy enough to ask for a statement and her recent checks without arousing any awkward questions. The assistant manager assured her that the statement would be in the mail next morning.

  Mrs. Snow put down the receiver and gazed at it bleakly, as if it were a symbol of impending disaster for all of them.

  Let me be wrong, she thought. Please, let me be wrong.

  Next morning, she sat down at the Chippendale desk in her late husband’s study. She put on her reading glasses and looked down uneasily at the manila envelope from the bank, which she had slipped out of the morning mail before Bruce came down to breakfast.

  There was no turning back now.

  As she lifted the ivory paper cutter to slit the envelope, a tap sounded at the door. She started. It was only Joe, the handyman.

  “I’m all finished up down cellar, Mrs. Snow. Okay if I leave?”

  “Whenever you’re ready, Joe.”

  “And, Mrs. Snow—my wife’s going on at me about scraping the floors down to our place. Seeing it’s a long weekend, I was wondering if maybe I could borrow the sanding machine.”

  “Of course,” said Mrs. Snow. “Take it right now.”

  “Well, I got a couple of chores uptown. I could pick it up tonight.” Joe hesitated at the door. “You sure you going to be okay all this time with Maggie away sick and only Arlene to help?”

  “You know I’ll be all right, Joe. Bruce will be off any minute to Long Island. I’m having no guests. Arlene will be here by noon, and there’ll be no one but me.”

  “But it’s a long weekend. Maybe if I was to drop in Sunday?”

  “Now don’t fuss, Joe. Go off and have a wonderful Labor Day spree.”

  “Okay, Mrs. Snow. Thanks.”

  The door closed behind Joe. Mrs. Snow opened the envelope and took
out the statement and the bundle of cancelled checks. She had no clear idea of what she was searching for, but like most very rich women she was less vague about her money than she seemed. She started to turn over the checks. Bergdorf’s, Hammacher Schlemmer, Cartier’s—yes, that had been for Lorna’s wedding anniversary bracelet. She came to a check made out to cash for seven hundred and fifty dollars. She puckered her forehead at it and put it aside. By the time she reached the bottom of the pile, she had found two more checks made out to cash. One for five hundred. One for fifteen hundred.

  She spread the three checks in front of her and studied them. They were correctly numbered for their place in the sequence. The signatures looked like hers. They must have done, for the bank to have passed them. But she was completely sure she had never written them.

  So I’m right, she thought, with a cold sinking of the heart. And at the beginning my instinct was right, too. In my cowardice at the idea of losing her, I did this to Lorna! I let her marry a crook, a blundering fortune hunter!

  Impulsively she picked up a red pencil and scribbled Forgery across one of the checks.

  Her self-accusations and her anguish for Lorna were merged with her anger against Bruce’s stupidity. True, it was one of his duties to take care of the incoming cancelled checks. He must have thought it would be easy to destroy the forgeries before she found them. But did he imagine she was so woolly-headed that she would not sooner or later notice a $2,750 discrepancy in the accounts?

  Mrs. Snow put the three checks in the manila envelope and rose with the envelope in her hand. There was nothing indecisive in her character. She had started this; she would go through with it. It cut her like a knife to realize how Lorna was going to suffer. But Lorna was no fool and no craven. Once she knew the truth, she would be able to face it. Grimly Mrs. Snow moved to the door, past the large walk-in safe that stored all her papers and her late husband’s yachting trophies.

  “Bruce!” she called down the stairway. “Bruce, I want you up here, please.”

  Her nephew-in-law was smiling when he strolled into the study. Mrs. Snow could now admit to herself that she had always been irritated by Bruce’s smile. It was as smug and self-satisfied as his thick black hair, his little moustache, his graceful horseman’s body.

  “Good morning, Aunt Addy.”

  Mrs. Snow looked at him icily. “It’s not a very good morning, Bruce. I’m afraid I’ve caught you out.”

  “Caught me out, Aunt Addy? What have I been up to now?”

  “I give Lorna a very generous allowance. If you needed more money, you could always have come to me. Why, in heaven’s name, did you forge those checks?”

  Mrs. Snow was startled at the total collapse of Bruce’s poise. Was he so conceited that he had never prepared himself against possible exposure?

  “Checks?” he stammered.

  “It’s useless to deny it.” Mrs. Snow held out the manila envelope. “I have the three checks here. They are obvious forgeries. They have the correct numbers on them. You’re the only person with access to my checkbook, the only one who could have known the right numbers. I haven’t the slightest idea how many other checks you’ve forged in the past, but that can easily be found out. It doesn’t particularly matter now, anyway. Nor does the sapphire ring.”

  Mrs. Snow was ashamed of the feeling of personal satisfaction mingling now with her distress. “I’m not going to bother telling you what I think of you, Bruce. I don’t believe in wasting breath. Nor do I believe in giving thieves a second chance. I’ve called you up here because I think it’s only fair to let you know what I’m going to do. I’m going to call Lorna right now. The sooner she knows the truth the better. After that I shall call my lawyers and have them start immediate divorce proceedings. Later, I may or may not turn you over to the police. That will depend entirely on how well you behave.”

  “But, Aunt Addy—” Bruce Mendham’s smile was meant to be both rueful and charming, but it merely succeeded in making him look like a Hallowe’en pumpkin. “Just listen to me, please. I can explain. I was in a jam. I was going to pay it all back. I swear I was. I got a tip on a horse at Belmont. Seven to one. It couldn’t lose. That’s what they told me. I called a bookie I know and bet five thousand to win. Okay, so the horse came in third. That happens all the time. But what could I do?”

  Both his hands had gone out towards her. The skin of his face was greenish and damp. She had the uncomfortable feeling that he might, at any moment, drop down on his knees.

  “Aunt Addy, you can’t play fast and loose with those bookies. They’re tough. They can have you killed if they feel like it. He wanted his money. I scraped up all I had. It wasn’t enough. He demanded the rest. Lorna has only what you give her. I knew it wasn’t any use going to her, and I knew you wouldn’t understand.

  “I had to do something. I was desperate. I wrote the first check, to stall him, and … Aunt Addy, I’ll pay you back. I’ll work for nothing. I’ll raise the money somehow. Please, please, don’t let Lorna know. Don’t go to the police. I was crazy. I realize that now. I’ll never look at another horse. I swear it. Aunt Addy, if only you’ll give me a chance …”

  Mrs. Snow listened to this incoherent flow of words with contempt and disgust. A cringing crook was worse than a brazen crook, she thought. Poor Lorna! Her head ached. She took off her reading glasses and lit a cigarette.

  “Please, Bruce, don’t go on. You must know these childish excuses haven’t the slightest effect on me.”

  She put down the envelope, turned to the telephone, and dialled.

  “Operator, I want to call the Lawrence Emmetts at East Hampton. I don’t know the number, but you can get it from Information.”

  Mrs. Snow had turned her back on Bruce. Her moment of feeling triumphant was over. Now she could think only of the unpleasantness that lay ahead, and the sight of the sycophantic Bruce was extremely distasteful to her. She was concentrating on the best way to break the news to Lorna. She didn’t notice Bruce’s hand move stealthily forward and slip the manila envelope off the desk.

  “Hello, Sylvia? This is Adelaide Snow. Is Lorna there?”

  “Hello, Mrs. Snow.” Sylvia Emmett’s voice was brisk and outdoorsy as ever. “I do wish you’d change your mind and drive down with Bruce. We’d so love to have you. I’m afraid Lorna and Larry went out sailing early. They’ll be back for lunch, though. Shall I have her call?”

  “Yes. Yes, please. And, Sylvia, tell her to do it the moment she comes in. It’s extremely urgent.”

  “Nothing wrong, I hope?”

  “Just tell her I shall want her to return immediately.”

  Mrs. Snow put down the receiver and turned back to Bruce. He seemed to have pulled himself together. He was no longer craven. He looked surly, a little sinister.

  “Aunt Addy, you’d better think this over. I warn you.”

  “You warn me? What absurd impertinence!” Indignation rose in Mrs. Snow. “Lorna’s out sailing. I’ll have to call the lawyers without her.”

  She moved back to the phone and then remembered that Sampson and Gibbons had recently changed offices. Their new address was on a letter she’d received a few days before. It would be in the safe.

  She dropped the cigarette into an ashtray on the desk, crossed to the vault’s heavy steel door, and dialled the familiar combination. The door swung open. She stepped inside and turned on the light. The letter file was at the back of the little room by the heating duct, opposite the shelves where her husband’s yachting cups gleamed brightly.

  As she moved towards the file, she heard a faint creak behind her. She turned to see the door of the vault swing shut. She gave a little exclamation of irritation and alarm. The spring mechanism on the door had broken last week. Joe and Bruce were supposed to have fixed it. She was foolish to go on using the safe. There was no real need for it.

  She took the few steps back to the closed door and tapped on it urgently.

  “Bruce,” she called. “Bruce, let me out! Let me
out!”

  Bruce Mendham stood in the study by the desk. He could hear his heart pounding. He had never dreamed the old lady would get wise to the checks. Exposure had taken him completely by surprise. Even when he had slipped the manila envelope into his pocket he had had no plan. It had just seemed obvious that possession of the checks would be an advantage. And then she had gone into the vault. Suddenly, the opportunity for salvation had come; almost without thinking, he had taken it.

  The moment he had pushed the safe door shut behind her, he’d realized how brilliant his instinct had been. Joe knew he had been planning to leave the house to join Lorna immediately after breakfast. Joe, too, was a witness to the fact that the door mechanism on the safe had been faulty. Alone in the house, Mrs. Snow had gone into the vault for something; the door had swung shut behind her; and …

  Bruce Mendham, who had spent all his life charming himself into one comfortable berth after another, had little imagination. To him, Mrs. Snow was just a boring old woman turned dangerous, who had almost succeeded in ruining his very existence. He could think of her shut up in the safe as unemotionally and scientifically as if she were one of her Siamese cats.

  Four days, including Labor Day, until the next week began! Certainly, in a small, sealed room, she could never last that time. He had the checks, and once Mrs. Snow was out of the picture there would be no one to testify against him. And Lorna would inherit everything.

  How could he ever have doubted the Mendham luck?

  “Bruce!” He heard Mrs. Snow’s voice, muffled like a voice on a bad telephone connection. “Bruce, let me out.”

  Excitement and self-satisfaction sprang up inside Bruce. Joe had gone for the weekend. Maggie, the maid, was at home sick. The cook, who slept out, too, and came in daily, was due to arrive at noon. But that could easily be fixed. So could Lorna. It would be a cinch to explain away Mrs. Snow’s urgent call. He never had any trouble handling Lorna.

  Bruce Mendham took the manila envelope out of his pocket. He brought out the three checks. He frowned angrily when he saw the word Forgery scribbled over one of them.