The lobby blurred with faces. She wiped her bloody hands on his waistcoat and let herself be pushed out of the way. At the stairs she heard a bellow, and she turned to the arrival of Gerry Fenoways of the perpetually dying mother, now complaining that he was being taken from her bedside. He had an actorly habit of turning his entire body toward each person he addressed, and now he was calling for witnesses , witnesses , tilting from side to side like a weighted balloon while his young deputy, a pale boy named Bixby, cringed in embarrassment.
Dulcy met Irving’s eyes, shook her head, and ran upstairs.
???
The bald man was dead, and her hands weren’t shaking, but Martha still would have called her juddery; she would have told Dulcy to get a grip, find her brain .
Martha had never had to see someone stabbed to death. Dulcy didn’t know if she’d have dreams, but now she thought again about what Walton might have seen falling, Pip and God’s loom, faces and beds looking out at him as he passed the Butler windows, the sound and touch of the sea air fanning his nightshirt and poor sore body before he hit.
She yanked her mind free: there would be a trial, and she would have to testify, and someone would take her photograph, and Henning would see her face as he scanned the national papers, selecting Victor’s reading for the day. She rinsed the snaky splatters of blood off her hands, then her coat, before she gave up, tossed everything on the floor, stripped naked and scrubbed herself, found a nightgown and ran to the window.
The police cart had arrived, lanterns swinging, beautiful blurs of light. “Dead as a fucking doornail!” bellowed Fenoways. “Bixby, where’s my brother? Find Hubie, and a stretcher, and tell Eugenia to donate a blanket for a fucking cause.” A lull, and then she watched Bixby and Hubie move the drained body, lumpy but insubstantial under a tablecloth, through the fat drops of snow. She heard hammering and guessed Irving was covering the shattered door with wood. The snow began to fall even harder, wet and large, and a new train was so muffled by the down in the air that she couldn’t tell if it approached from the west or the east. She curled up on the bed as the sound of brakes drowned out the Fenoways brothers’ bellows, and she tried to put her mind somewhere else: wading in Chautauqua Creek, the way the courtyard rippled in Salonica, the spice bazaars in Damascus or Palermo or anything that smelled different than Walton or the stabbed man when they reached the ground.
The sounds of voices, bystanders or new guests from this last train, died down. She would read and fall asleep with her light on like an idiot. And now that she wanted her glasses, she finally realized that she didn’t have her bag, that it hadn’t made it up the stairs. She’d dropped it on the floor when she’d knelt with the man.
She looked for her slippers and gave up, cinched her robe, and padded to the stairwell. Behind her, Miss Randall purred and mumbled, oblivious to death and chaos; below, Irving was talking fast and hacking his little heart out. She tried to wait him out, but her feet were freezing, and now Irving was laughing, probably because he’d just seen someone die, and people had bought him drinks when he had no head for liquor. The stairwell lights were dimmed, which meant he thought his guests were in for the night. She started down, but paused when she heard steps on the marble.
“Night then, Irv,” said a man. “I hope tomorrow is quieter. Did Samuel see the show?”
“He’s off to Helena,” said Irving. “Missed it. Did I give you the mail?”
“You did.”
Dulcy decided that she would soon freeze to death, and that anyone on a first-name basis with Irving wouldn’t care about Mrs. Nash. She edged to the side when she rounded the landing to make way for the man climbing toward her. His head was down and he was still wearing a hat; he didn’t notice her until they were a few steps apart. He lifted his head, and she focused on his pale, surprised face for a second before she took in the hand with the missing fingers on the banister. They stared at each other before the man from the train moved to one side and she edged past.
“Excuse me,” he said. “Miss...? Excuse me, but I’ve forgotten your name.”
It was so hard to speak. “Mrs. Nash,” she said. “I’m sure we’ve met, but I can’t recall yours, either.”
“Lewis Braudel,” he said. “Irving just told me the story of your dramatic evening.”
“Horrible,” said Dulcy.
Lewis Braudel looked down and away from her bare feet. “Good night,” he said.
“Good night,” said Dulcy, despite the fact that it hadn’t been, and her heart was blowing up. She tottered past him, and felt him pause on the next landing to look back.
Irving was humming as he mopped blood from the lobby floor. He nodded toward her blue bag on top of the glass case at the base of the stairs, the one that held little tourist trinkets, statuettes of geysers and bears and Indian chiefs. “I just saw it,” he said. “About to bring it up, but I worried I’d wake you.”
“I couldn’t sleep,” said Dulcy. “That poor man. Do you know his name?”
“Well, of course,” said Irving cheerfully. “The lawyer Peck, and Mr. Inkster, who owns the stables. But we can’t have blood on the marble, even if we liked the person it came from. I’m a happy man that Mrs. K slept through the thing.”
Dulcy doubted Mrs. Knox’s slumber was natural, but she envied her. She’d be taking the next train, rather than sleeping at all. The reality of the man on the stairs was sinking in: she could hear his voice on the Empire Builder, see the hat on his lap, the smile from the platform in Bozeman. He had been Victor’s man after all—she’d been found, and she must run. East, west; how much time did she have, and how to ask Irving when either train came through? “I’d rather no one know I saw it happen,” she said. “I’d rather not have my name in the paper.”
“Course not.”
Her whole body was shuddering. “But the new guest knew. I was so startled to see him on the stairs.”
Irving looked dubious. “Well, you’re a mess tonight, Mrs. Nash. There’s nothing to worry about. That’s just Mr. Braudel finally back, the guest I’ve been worried about. I only told him you helped.”
“Oh,” said Dulcy. “I don’t think so. I’m thinking of a man with missing fingers.”
“Well, yes, but it wasn’t that he lost them playing with a knife. He’s Mr. Peake’s old school friend, the one who’s kept 423 this last year,” said Irving, looking her over. “You have blood on your chin, you know. Can I bring you up something to calm you down?”
“No, thank you,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”