Rachel Alexander 04 - Lady Vanishes

they don’t cover her ears, they can’t do her a bit of good, can they?”
    “And there was another time that day? Was that also Mrs. Poole?”
    “I’d gone to fetch David away from the front door. And again there was shouting coming from Mr. Dietrich’s office. It’s not like I was trying to hear what they were saying. It’s just that—”
    “What?”
    “Well, he was so loud. You couldn’t help hearing him. It even made David more tense. It was lucky I’d come to take him upstairs before dinner.”
    “Who? Who was so loud?
    “Mr. Dietrich. And he was normally so soft-spoken, that one. He hardly ever raised his voice.”
    “What did you hear that time?”
    “Well, on the way to get David, I heard him say, ‘It’s out of the question.’ It sounded like something fell when he said it.”
    “Could he have hit the desk with his fist?” I asked, thinking about the thick carpet in Harry’s office, which would deaden the sound of something falling.
    “Yes—it could have been that.”
    “Was that all you heard?”
    Molly shook her head. “When I was passing the office with the lad, I heard him shout again. ‘Not even when hell freezes over and gets as cold as your calculating little heart,’ j S what he said that time.”
    “And who was in there?”
    “I don’t know, Rachel. I didn’t stay around to find out. I wanted to get David away from the shouting as fast as I could. I took the elevator, so I never heard another word. His joss must be even more painful for them.”
    “For whom?”
    “Why, for the two he fought with on the last day of his life. They’ll never get the chance to make up.”
    “Are you sure it was two different people, Molly? Couldn’t Mr. Dietrich have been fighting with Mrs. Poole again, or still, the second time?”
    “Oh, they’d gone by then, those three.”
    “You saw them leave?”
    “Couldn’t help it. When I was coming back in with Charlotte, she nearly knocked the two of us over, rushing out the front door with those two spoiled brats of hers. And not a word of apology from herself, not to me and not to Charlotte neither.”
    “And you didn’t see anyone come out of Harry’s office the second time you heard the shouting?”
    “No,” she said. “I was up with David.”
    I stood up to go. “Thanks for last night, Molly. You were right. That was no time to be walking around outside.”
    But Molly wasn’t listening to me.
    “It could have been anyone,” she said. “He might have even been on the phone, for all I know.” She reached up and wiped her eyes. “It was the last I heard of him,” she said, tears running down her old face. “An hour later, there was that terrible accident, and he was gone and now I canna’ take back the awful thing / said to him.”
    “What awful thing?”
    She flapped her hand at me.
    “You’ll feel better if you tell someone.”
    “It was about the phones, Rachel. He put in some sort of device, he told me, that would track the outgoing calls.”
    “ Harry did that? Why?”
    “Cheapness,” she shouted. “He said I had free room and board and plenty of money besides, and he wasn’t going to have me calling my relatives in Ireland on his nickel. He was obsessed about it, the phone and the electric. You could break your neck walking around in the dark so he could save a penny, running around shutting off lights the way he did.”
    She pulled up a tissue and blew her nose.
    “I was furious, Rachel. The only one left in Ireland is my sister Mary. We haven’t spoken in thirty-two years. But it was the principle of the thing.” She bit her lip. “I called him an old skinflint, I did, and now—”
    “But he was an old skinflint,” I told her, taking her in my arms.
    If Harry had put in the bugs, then whoever killed him didn’t know about his marriage and the new will, didn’t know they’d done it all for nothing. It wouldn’t be until they read the will at his lawyer’s office that they would understand the changes that would be instituted because of Harry’s death.
    “There’s one more thing,” she said.
    I stepped back and looked at her.
    “What’s that?”
    “I didn’t see Mr. Dietrich get hit. But I may have seen him just before it happened.”
    “What makes you think so?”
    “Cora and Dora wanted to be near the window. Dora got there herself. Cora wanted me to wheel the chair for her. And I did. I know I baby her too much. Venus always tells me that. But I can’t seem to stop myself.