Escape the Night by Eberhart Mignon G

Author:Eberhart, Mignon G. [Eberhart, Mignon G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781453257326
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
Published: 2012-05-28T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

NO ONE SPOKE FOR a moment. Then Dave leaned over and put his hand upon Serena’s. He said to Amanda, still so sharply and sternly that it didn’t sound like Dave: “You’d better take that back, Amanda. Right now. Publicly.”

Astonishment crossed Amanda’s face. “Really, Dave! Do you consider this public?”

Dave’s eyes flashed. His quiet, scholarly face was pale and angry. He said, still in that stern and unexpectedly angry voice, “If you said that to one person only it would still be too public. Take it back, Amanda. Apologize, if you’re capable of it.”

“Why, Dave!” cried Amanda, her eyes widening.

Sutton from the mantel said: “Dave’s right. You don’t realize what you’ve just said, Amanda. You don’t realize how serious this is. You didn’t mean to, I know, but you’ve practically accused Sissy of murder.” And Serena, at last, found her voice, and stopped being a paralyzed observer, which up to then she had been, quite as if none of the things they were saying concerned her, Serena March.

Yet actually she was incredulous. She was grateful to Dave for defending her, and to Sutton. But she didn’t even for an instant think that Amanda meant what she said.

“Amanda, you’re being very silly,” she said, and then was surprised to find that she’d thought she was quite calm and cool, but that her voice was unsteady and high. She went on, however: “You know perfectly well that you don’t mean that you think I killed”—her voice wavered again but she finished—“anybody. You just can’t realize that it’s true and Leda really was murdered.” Amanda was staring at her blankly, the whites showing beneath the brown irises in her eyes. How could she make Amanda or the others understand Amanda’s fatal faculty for avoiding plain facts when she chose to do so. It meant, really, nothing.

“Oh, all right,” said Amanda. “I apologize, Serena.”

“You needn’t apologize,” said Serena wearily.

“Maybe you don’t realize how serious this is, Amanda,” said Dave. “But try to. It’s murder. The murder of one of your closest friends and one of mine and—of all of us. It means a murder investigation; it means a trial; it means … The point is, you’ve got to consider somebody besides yourself. You can’t play-act. Understand?”

Sutton said again, placatively: “She’s only upset. She didn’t realize …”

Amanda said sullenly: “Oh, all right, Dave. Forget it. All of you forget it. Not,” she added, “that the police will. You’ll see. They’ll say it’s queer that all these things happened right after Sissy got home. Yes, and after you got back, too, Bill Lanier. Don’t forget that.”

Dave gave a kind of sigh and went over to stand beside Sutton. Bill cried: “So it’s me you’re going to work on now, Amanda. Well, I’ll get ahead of you. I’ll tell the police you’d like to have me arrested for murder. That’d just suit you, wouldn’t it, Amanda? But the catch is I didn’t do it.”

“Nobody ever said you did,” flashed Alice.

“She’ll say it if she gets half a chance,” said Bill, jerking his dark head toward Amanda.

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