Margaret Millar - Fire Will Freeze

“Don’t be crazy,” Jeanneret said. “Don’t be crazy...”

“I’m not crazy. My head feels very clear. I feel very good.”

“Don’t... I paid you. I paid you. You can’t turn on me. I paid you! Don’t... don’t...”

He fell forward on his knees with his arms outstretched.

“I feel swell,” Rudd said. “Little Hitler, here it is.”

Jeanneret toppled, almost without sound, clutching his heart with his hands. The blood spurted out between his fingers.

Rudd stood motionless, watching him. He did not even put his gun back in his pocket but held it, prepared to shoot again. The blood fascinated him. It was like melted rubies.

Jeanneret died without a groan. Rudd touched him with the tip of his snowshoe.

“French Canada for Frenchmen,” he said, laughing. “Here’s your part of French Canada. Six feet by two feet. That big enough for you? Sure it is. You’re not as big as you thought you were. One lousy little bullet. A cinch, Jeanneret. Heil, punk.”

He put the gun back in his pocket. In the southeast the moving white fountain looked bigger. He was sure now it was a truck. Maybe with a policeman in it. Maybe Hearst had wakened sooner than he expected him to.

He bent over and took off his snowshoes. There was blood on the tip where he’d touched Jeanneret.

He slipped the pole straps off Jeanneret’s wrists and the blood dripped down the poles. He rolled them over and over in the snow to get the blood off. Then he took the skis off Jeanneret’s feet and tossed them to the side.

He buried Jeanneret by pushing him into the snow as deep as he’d go and when he wouldn’t go any deeper he stood on him, balancing himself with the poles.

They”ll find him some time in the spring, Rudd thought. And by that time — hell, by that time I’ll be in South America, or Florida. I think I’ll be Mr. Aldington in Florida.

He pushed some more snow on Jeanneret’s body and said again, “Heil, punk!”

Then, almost without hurry, he began to put the skis on.

The snow-plow truck was coming closer, but he didn’t look at it again until he was ready to leave. Then he thrust the poles into the snow, and with his head raised in challenge he shouted:

“Come and get me! Come and get me, you bastards!”

He slid ahead, laughing to himself. His head felt clear and there were noises inside it like the bells of danger.

The sound of the shot reached the veranda like the snapping of a thin thread.

Chad said, “We’ll go inside now. No sense in waiting...”

“What was that noise?” Mrs. Vista said.

“How should I know?” Chad said. “Come inside.”

Paula looked at him levelly. “You know what it was. It was a...”

“Dry up,” he said.

“It was what?” Mrs. Vista said irritably. “Speak up, girl.”

“It was a shot,” Paula said.

Mrs. Vista blinked. “A shot? A gun, you mean?”

“Probably some farmer shooting rabbits,” Chad said. “Sound travels quite a distance in this air. Nothing to get excited about. Let’s go inside.”

Mrs. Vista gave him a glance from her shrewd little eyes, but Chad’s face remained expressionless. Perhaps it was a farmer, she thought, and even if it were not it was far, far better to believe it was. She took Mr. Goodwin’s arm, and leaning on it heavily she followed the Thropples and Mr. Hunter back into the house.

“Go in, too, Paula,” Chad said flatly.

“Are you coming?”

“Later.”

“Why not now?” She nodded her head in the direction of Joyce who stood at the far end of the veranda, her eyes still fixed on the horizon. “Because of her ?”

“No,” Chad said. “I thought you and Miss Morning could go up and attend to Isobel.”

Paula hesitated and her face looked sulky and defiant.

“I didn’t like the way she looked,” Chad added.

“You’re just getting rid of me.”

“That’s what you want, isn’t it? Be reasonable just this once. Let your right hand know what your left is doing.”

A slow flush spread over her face. Then, without any warning, she raised her hand and dealt him a stinging blow on the cheek.

“That’s what my right hand is doing,” she said in a high tearful voice.

“All right,” Chad said quietly. “Now how about your left? You got that figured out, too?”

She raised her left hand and then dropped it wearily and walked into the house. Her face was pale and stiff. I’ve hit him. I’ve hit someone. I haven’t any control. I’m jealous, jealous — I love him...

She began to cry and whisper through her sobs. “I love him. I love him. I’m jealous of him and I love him.”

“Sure you do,” Gracie said from the staircase. “And so what. Are you coming?”

Sniffling and wiping her eyes, Paula followed Gracie slowly up the steps. When the door closed behind Paula, Chad walked quickly over to Joyce.

“Can you still see them?”

“One of them,” Joyce said. “Crawford had the gun, so I guess what I see is Crawford, or Rudd.”

Chad scanned the horizon but could see nothing. “You have good eyesight, haven’t you?”

“Of course,” she replied, without turning. “Inside and out. I think Rudd is crazy. He acts like a maniac.”

“What if he’s killed Dubois?”

Joyce turned then and gave him a half-pitying smile. “That wouldn’t make any difference to us. You don’t suppose Mr. Dubois intended to send help to us, do you? You are very naïve.”

“What in hell are you talking about?”

“Naïveté seems to be as congenital as color blindness. I really believe I was sophisticated at two. I don’t suppose Dubois is even his real name.”

“Go on,” Chad said grimly.

“As soon as I saw him,” Joyce said in a dreamy and exasperating voice, “I recognized the pimples at the back of his neck. And of course, even aside from that, pure logic indicated that he would have to be the bus driver.”

“I suppose you were as logical at two as you were sophisticated.”

“Naturally,” Joyce said modestly. “I mean, Dubois’ arrival was coincidental. I don’t suppose many skiers do get lost, and it seemed far too peculiar that we should lose a bus driver and find a lost skier. You understand?”

“You make it very clear. All except one point: why didn’t you tell us?”

“Why should I? I knew everyone would get all emotional and obscure the issue. And the issue was, if Dubois and Crawford were a pair of crooks and murderers, it would be better to have them out of the house. Simple logic, again.”

“Yes,” Chad said weakly.

“Because, of course, we were not actually uncomfortable here except for the presence of a murderer. Now that Rudd is gone we shall calmly await rescue.”

“And you knew about Dubois right from the start?”

“Not actually right at the start. But certainly when he faked being sick at the table. And then it was Crawford-Rudd who hurried to take him out.”

“Why?” Chad said. “Why fake it in the first place?”

“That’s one point I don’t quite see,” Joyce said, frowning. “I think it had something to do with Miss Seton. We’ll have to ask her.”

But Miss Seton was in no condition to answer questions. She slept on, oblivious to the cold wet towels on her face and the urgent commands of Gracie to wake up.

“Maybe she’s dying,” Gracie said. “Maybe they poisoned her.”

“Hush up,” Paula said. “She’s been doped, I think. We’ll have to walk her.”

“Walk her?”

“Walk her. Make her walk up and down the room to wear off the drug.” Paula leaned over the bed and put her arm under one of Isobel’s shoulders and raised her to a sitting position. “Gracie, take her on the other side. Now pull her up on her feet.”