VII + 

The Curse + 

Nobody said anything for some minutes after I had finished reading. Mrs.┬аLeggett had taken her handkerchief from her face to listen, sobbing softly now and then. Gabrielle Leggett was looking jerkily around the room, light fighting cloudiness in her eyes, her lips twitching as if she was trying to get words out but couldnтАЩt. + 

I went to the table, bent over the dead man, and ran my hand over his pockets. The inside coat pocket bulged. I reached under his arm, unbuttoned and pulled open his coat, taking a brown wallet from the pocket. The wallet was thick with paper moneyтБатАФfifteen thousand dollars when we counted it later. + 

Showing the others the walletтАЩs contents, I asked: + 

тАЬDid he leave any message besides the one I read?тАЭ + 

тАЬNone thatтАЩs been found,тАЭ OтАЩGar said. тАЬWhy?тАЭ + 

тАЬAny that you know of, Mrs.┬аLeggett?тАЭ I asked. + 

She shook her head. + 

тАЬWhy?тАЭ OтАЩGar asked again. + 

тАЬHe didnтАЩt commit suicide,тАЭ I said. тАЬHe was murdered.тАЭ + 

Gabrielle Leggett screamed shrilly and sprang out of her chair, pointing a sharp-nailed white finger at Mrs.┬аLeggett. + 

тАЬShe killed him,тАЭ the girl shrieked. тАЬShe said, тАШCome back here,тАЩ and held the kitchen door open with one hand, and picked up the knife from the drainboard with the other, and when he went past her she pushed it in his back. I saw her do it. She killed him. I wasnтАЩt dressed, and when I heard them coming I hid in the pantry, and I saw her do it.тАЭ + 

Mrs.┬аLeggett got to her feet. She staggered, and would have fallen if Fitzstephan hadnтАЩt gone over to steady her. Amazement washed her swollen face empty of grief. + 

The gray-faced dandified man by the tableтБатАФDoctor Riese, I learned laterтБатАФsaid, in a cold, crisp voice: + 

тАЬThere is no stab wound. He was shot through the temple by a bullet from this pistol, held close, slanting up. Clearly suicide, I should say.тАЭ + 

Collinson forced Gabrielle down to her chair again, trying to calm her. She was working her hands together and moaning. + 

I disagreed with the doctorтАЩs last statement, and said so while turning something else over in my mind: + 

тАЬMurder. He had this money in his pocket. He was going away. He wrote that letter to the police to clear his wife and daughter, so they wouldnтАЩt be punished for complicity in his crimes. Did it,тАЭ I asked OтАЩGar, тАЬsound to you like the dying statement of a man who was leaving a wife and daughter he loved? No message, no word, to themтБатАФall to the police.тАЭ + 

тАЬMaybe youтАЩre right,тАЭ the bullet-headed man said; тАЬbut supposing he was going away, he still didnтАЩt leave them anyтБатАФтАЭ + 

тАЬHe would have told themтБатАФeither on paper or talkingтБатАФsomething before he went, if he had lived long enough. He was winding up his affairs, preparing to go away, andтБатАФMaybe he was going to commit suicide, though the money and the tone of the letter make me doubt it; but even in that case my guess is that he didnтАЩt, that he was killed before he had finished his preparationsтБатАФmaybe because he was taking too long a time. How was he found?тАЭ + 

тАЬI heard,тАЭ Mrs.┬аLeggett sobbed; тАЬI heard the shot, and ran up here, and heтБатАФhe was like that. And I went down to the telephone, and the bellтБатАФthe doorbellтБатАФrang, and it was Mr.┬аFitzstephan, and I told him. It couldnтАЩtтБатАФthere was nobody else in the house toтБатАФto kill him.тАЭ + 

тАЬYou killed him,тАЭ I said to her. тАЬHe was going away. He wrote this statement, shouldering your crimes. You killed Ruppert down in the kitchen. ThatтАЩs what the girl was talking about. Your husbandтАЩs letter sounded enough like a suicide letter to pass for one, you thought; so you murdered himтБатАФmurdered him because you thought his confession and death would hush up the whole business, keep us from poking into it any further.тАЭ + 

Her face didnтАЩt tell me anything. It was distorted, but in a way that might have meant almost anything. I filled my lungs and went on, not exactly bellowing, but getting plenty of noise out: + 

тАЬThere are half a dozen lies in your husbandтАЩs statementтБатАФhalf a dozen that I can peg now. He didnтАЩt send for you and his daughter. You traced him here. Mrs.┬аBegg said he was the most surprised man she had ever seen when you arrived from New York. He didnтАЩt give Upton the diamonds. His account of why he gave them to Upton and of what he intended doing afterwards is ridiculous: itтАЩs simply the best story he could think of on short notice to cover you up. Leggett would have given him money or he would have given him nothing; he wouldnтАЩt have been foolish enough to give him somebody elseтАЩs diamonds and have all this stink raised. + 

тАЬUpton traced you here and he came to you with his demandтБатАФnot to your husband. You had hired Upton to find Leggett; you were the one he knew; he and Ruppert had traced Leggett for you, not only to Mexico City, but all the way here. TheyтАЩd have squeezed you before this if they hadnтАЩt been sent to Sing Sing for another trick. When they got out, Upton came here and made his play. You framed the burglary; you gave Upton the diamonds; and you didnтАЩt tell your husband anything about it. Your husband thought the burglary was on the level. Otherwise, would heтБатАФa man with his recordтБатАФhave risked reporting it to the police? + 

тАЬWhy didnтАЩt you tell him about Upton? DidnтАЩt you want him to know that you had had him traced step by step from DevilтАЩs Island to San Francisco? Why? His southern record was a good additional hold on him, if you needed one? You didnтАЩt want him to know you knew about Labaud and Howart and Edge?тАЭ + 

I didnтАЩt give her a chance to answer any of these questions, but sailed ahead, turning my voice loose: + 

тАЬMaybe Ruppert, following Upton here, got in touch with you, and you had him kill Upton, a job he was willing to do on his own hook. Probably, because he did kill him and he did come to you afterwards, and you thought it necessary to put the knife into him down in the kitchen. You didnтАЩt know the girl, hiding in the pantry, saw you; but you did know that you were getting out of your depth. You knew that your chances of getting away with RuppertтАЩs murder were slim. Your house was too much in the spotlight. So you played your only out. You went to your husband with the whole storyтБатАФor as much of it as could be arranged to persuade himтБатАФand got him to shoulder it for you. And then you handed him thisтБатАФhere at the table. + 

тАЬHe shielded you. He had always shielded you. You,тАЭ I thundered, my voice in fine form by now, тАЬkilled your sister Lily, his first wife, and let him take the fall for you. You went to London with him after that. Would you have gone with your sisterтАЩs murderer if you had been innocent? You had him traced here, and you came here after him, and you married him. You were the one who decided he had married the wrong sister, and you killed her.тАЭ + 

тАЬShe did! She did!тАЭ cried Gabrielle Leggett, trying to get up from the chair in which Collinson was holding her. тАЬSheтБатАФтАЭ + 

Mrs.┬аLeggett drew herself up straight, and smiled, showing strong yellowish teeth set edge to edge. She took two steps toward the center of the room. One hand was on her hip, the other hanging loosely at her side. The housewifeтБатАФFitzstephanтАЩs serene sane soulтБатАФwas suddenly gone. This was a blonde woman whose body was rounded, not with the plumpness of contented, well-cared-for early middle age, but with the cushioned, soft-sheathed muscles of the hunting cats, whether in jungle or alley. + 

I picked up the pistol from the table and put it in my pocket. + 

тАЬYou wish to know who killed my sister?тАЭ Mrs.┬аLeggett asked softly, speaking to me, her teeth clicking together between words, her mouth smiling, her eyes burning. тАЬShe, the dope fiend, GabrielleтБатАФshe killed her mother. She is the one he shielded.тАЭ + 

The girl cried out something unintelligible. + 

тАЬNonsense,тАЭ I said. тАЬShe was a baby.тАЭ + 

тАЬOh, but it is not nonsense,тАЭ the woman said. тАЬShe was nearly five, a child of five playing with a pistol that she had taken from a drawer while her mother slept. The pistol went off and Lily died. An accident, of course, but Maurice was too sensitive a soul to bear the thought of her growing up knowing that she had killed her mother. Besides, it was likely that Maurice would have been convicted in any event. It was known that he and I were intimate, that he wanted his freedom from Lily; and he was at the door of LilyтАЩs bedroom when the shot was fired. But that was a slight matter to him: his one desire was to save the child from memory of what she had done, so her life might not be blackened by the knowledge that she had, however accidentally, killed her mother.тАЭ + 

What made this especially nasty was the niceness with which the woman smiled as she talked, and the careтБатАФalmost fastidiousтБатАФwith which she selected her words, mouthing them daintily. She went on: + 

тАЬGabrielle was always, even before she became addicted to drugs, a child of, one might say, limited mentality; and so, by the time the London police had found us, we had succeeded in quite emptying her mind of the last trace of memory, that is, of this particular memory. This is, I assure you, the entire truth. She killed her mother; and her father, to use your expression, took the fall for her.тАЭ + 

тАЬFairly plausible,тАЭ I conceded, тАЬbut it doesnтАЩt hang together right. ThereтАЩs a chance that you made Leggett believe that, but I doubt it. I think youтАЩre trying to hurt your stepdaughter because sheтАЩs told us of seeing you knife Ruppert downstairs.тАЭ + 

She pulled her lips back from her teeth and took a quick step toward me, her eyes wide and white-ringed; then she checked herself, laughed sharply, and the glare went from her eyesтБатАФor maybe went back through them, to smolder behind them. She put her hands on her hips and smiled playfully, airily, at me and spoke playfully to me, while mad hatred glowed behind eyes, smile, and voice. + 

тАЬAm I? Then I must tell you this, which I should not tell you unless it was true. I taught her to kill her mother. Do you understand? I taught her, trained her, drilled her, rehearsed her. Do you understand that? Lily and I were true sisters, inseparable, hating one another poisonously. Maurice, he wished to marry neither of usтБатАФwhy should he?тБатАФthough he was intimate enough with both. You are to try to understand that literally. But we were poverty-ridden and he was not, and, because we were and he wasnтАЩt, Lily wished to marry him. And I, I wished to marry him because she did. We were true sisters, like that in all things. But Lily got him, firstтБатАФtrapped himтБатАФthat is crude but exactтБатАФinto matrimony. + 

тАЬGabrielle was born six or seven months later. What a happy little family we were. I lived with themтБатАФwerenтАЩt Lily and I inseparable?тБатАФand from the first Gabrielle had more love for me than for her mother. I saw to that: there was nothing her Aunt Alice wouldnтАЩt do for her dear niece; because her preferring me infuriated Lily, not that Lily herself loved the child so much, but that we were sisters; and whatever one wanted the other wanted, not to share, but exclusively. + 

тАЬGabrielle had hardly been born before I began planning what I should some day do; and when she was nearly five I did it. MauriceтАЩs pistol, a small one, was kept in a locked drawer high in a chiffonier. I unlocked the drawer, unloaded the pistol, and taught Gabrielle an amusing little game. I would lie on LilyтАЩs bed, pretending to sleep. The child would push a chair to the chiffonier, climb up on it, take the pistol from the drawer, creep over to the bed, put the muzzle of the pistol to my head, and press the trigger. When she did it well, making little or no noise, holding the pistol correctly in her tiny hands, I would reward her with candy, cautioning her against saying anything about the game to her mother or to anyone else, as we were going to surprise her mother with it. + 

тАЬWe did. We surprised her completely one afternoon when, having taken aspirin for a headache, Lily was sleeping in her bed. That time I unlocked the drawer but did not unload the pistol. Then I told the child she might play the game with her mother; and I went to visit friends on the floor below, so no one would think I had had any part in my dear sisterтАЩs demise. I thought Maurice would be away all afternoon. I intended, when I heard the shot, to rush upstairs with my friends and find with them that the child playing with the pistol had killed her mother. + 

тАЬI had little fear of the childтАЩs talking afterwards. Of, as I have said, limited mentality, loving and trusting me as she did, and in my hands both before and during any official inquiry that might be made, I knew I could very easily control her, make sure that she said nothing to reveal my part in theтБатАФahтБатАФenterprise. But Maurice very nearly spoiled the whole thing. Coming home unexpectedly, he reached the bedroom door just as Gabrielle pressed the trigger. The tiniest fraction of a second earlier, and he would have been in time to save his wifeтАЩs life. + 

тАЬWell, that was unfortunate in that it led to his being convicted; but it certainly prevented his ever suspecting me; and his subsequent desire to wipe from the childтАЩs mind all remembrance of the deed relieved me of any further anxiety or effort. I did follow him to this country after his escape from DevilтАЩs Island, and I did follow him to San Francisco when Upton had found him for me; and I used GabrielleтАЩs love for me and her hatred of himтБатАФI had carefully cultivated that with skilfully clumsy attempts to persuade her to forgive him for murdering her motherтБатАФand the necessity of keeping her in ignorance of the truth, and my record of faithfulness to him and her, to make him marry me, to make him think that marrying me would in some sense salvage our ruined lives. The day he married Lily I swore I would take him away from her. And I did. And I hope my dear sister in hell knows it.тАЭ + 

The smile was gone. Mad hatred was no longer behind eyes and voice: it was in them, and in the set of her features, the pose of her body. This mad hatredтБатАФand she as part of itтБатАФseemed the only live thing in the room. The eight of us who looked at and listened to her didnтАЩt, for the moment, count: we were alive to her, but not to each other, nor to anything but her. + 

She turned from me to fling an arm out at the girl on the other side of the room; and now her voice was throaty, vibrant, with savage triumph in it; and her words were separated into groups by brief pauses, so that she seemed to be chanting them. + 

тАЬYouтАЩre her daughter,тАЭ she cried; тАЬand youтАЩre cursed with the same black soul and rotten blood that she and I and all the Dains have had; and youтАЩre cursed with your motherтАЩs blood on your hands in babyhood; and with the twisted mind and the need for drugs that are my gifts to you; and your life will be black as your motherтАЩs and mine were black; and the lives of those you touch will be black as MauriceтАЩs was black; and yourтБатАФтАЭ + 

тАЬStop!тАЭ Eric Collinson gasped. тАЬMake her stop.тАЭ + 

Gabrielle Leggett, both hands to her ears, her face twisted with terror, screamed onceтБатАФhorriblyтБатАФand fell forward out of her chair. + 

Pat Reddy was young at manhunting, but OтАЩGar and I should have known better than to stop watching Mrs.┬аLeggett even for a half-second, no matter how urgently the girlтАЩs scream and fall pulled at our attention. But we did look at the girlтБатАФif for less than half a secondтБатАФand that was long enough. When we looked at Mrs.┬аLeggett again, she had a gun in her hand, and she had taken her first step towards the door. + 

Nobody was between her and the door: the uniformed copper had gone to help Collinson with Gabrielle Leggett. Nobody was behind her: her back was to the door and by turning she had brought Fitzstephan into her field of vision. She glared over the black gun, burning eyes darting from one to another of us, taking another step backward, snarling: тАЬDonтАЩt you move.тАЭ + 

Pat Reddy shifted his weight to the balls of his feet. I frowned at him, shaking my head. The hall and stairs were better places in which to catch her: in here somebody would die. + 

She backed over the sill, blew breath between her teeth with a hissing, spitting sound, and was gone down the hall. + 

Owen Fitzstephan was first through the door after her. The policeman got in my way, but I was second out. The woman had reached the head of the stairs, at the other end of the dim hall, with Fitzstephan, not far behind, rapidly overtaking her. + 

He caught her on the between-floors landing, just as I reached the top of the stairs. He pinned one of her arms to her body, but the other, with the gun, was free. He grabbed at it and missed. She twisted the muzzle in to his body as IтБатАФwith my head bent to miss the edge of the floorтБатАФleaped down at them. + 

I landed on them just in time, crashing into them, smashing them into the corner of the wall, sending her bullet, meant for the sorrel-haired man, into a step. + 

We werenтАЩt standing up. I caught with both hands at the flash of her gun, missed, and had her by the waist. Close to my chin FitzstephanтАЩs lean fingers closed on her gun-hand wrist. + 

She twisted her body against my right arm. My right arm was still lame from our spill out of the Chrysler. It wouldnтАЩt hold. Her thick body went up, turning over on me. + 

Gunfire roared in my ear, burnt my cheek. + 

The womanтАЩs body went limp. + 

When OтАЩGar and Reddy pulled us apart she lay still. The second bullet had gone through her throat. + 

I went up to the laboratory. Gabrielle Leggett, with the doctor and Collinson kneeling beside her, was lying on the floor. + 

I told the doctor: тАЬBetter take a look at Mrs.┬аLeggett. SheтАЩs on the stairs. Dead, I think, but youтАЩd better take a look.тАЭ + 

The doctor went out. Collinson, chafing the unconscious girlтАЩs hands, looked at me as if I were something there ought to be a law against, and said: + 

тАЬI hope youтАЩre satisfied with the way your work got done.тАЭ + 

тАЬIt got done,тАЭ I said. + 