by Zenith Brown
“In that case,” I said quickly, “I mean, if the gun was found at the foot of York Road, it can’t have been Thorn.”
He smiled exasperatingly. “Not necessarily. However, there were other people on York Road that night.”
I tried as I looked at him to define the clear implication in his voice.
“I was there,” I said tentatively.
He nodded.
“Yes, Mrs. Niles. You were. And you had a companion.”
“Colonel Arbuthnot-Howe?” I demanded.
Mr. Sullivan smiled, rather like a male Irish Mona Lisa.
CHAPTER XXIV
I couldn’t quite at the moment decide whether Mr. Sullivan thought I had thrown the weapon there in front of him into Seaton River, or whether it was Colonel Arbuthnot-Howe. Both were equally preposterous. Nevertheless, my chief point was gained—or so I thought. Thorn Carter was absolved; at least suspicion was diverted from her. More than that, Mr. Sullivan knew, thanks to Colonel Arbuthnot-Howe, that she had used the King Charles Street gate. He probably knew everything else I’d told the Englishman. There was therefore no further point in my not telling him everything I knew. As a matter of fact, it turned out that Mr. Sullivan knew a great deal that I didn’t know he knew at all. Which, after all, is his job, and I suppose explains why he’s been a successful State’s Attorney for twenty years.
“Perhaps, Mrs. Niles,” he said, taking the idea out of my mind before I’d expressed it, “you could make things much clearer by telling me exactly what happened, as far as you yourself know it, last night. We’ll just forget everything you’ve said before and begin all over again.”
The implication rather nettled me. As a matter of fact I’d merely left out things, I hadn’t put any in. Nevertheless I began. I told him about hearing a click and seeing Reverdy come out of the King Charles gate at 1.00 o’clock. I told how he had stopped outside the gate under the lamp, and appeared to be counting money. I described Thorn’s arrival at 2.15 and our talk. Mr. Sullivan seemed a little annoyed when I told him that the gate was locked when we went back. He seemed, however, to believe me readily enough when I told about my finding the note under the street lamp, stuffing it into my pocket and forgetting it in the extraordinary events that followed.
“And that’s all,” I ended, “that I didn’t tell you before.”
He gave me a rather sourish smile.
“Enough to make a whale of a difference, you’ll have to admit. Eh, Mr. Rand?”
Mr. Rand nodded pontifically. He seemed to me either to be vastly indifferent about the whole business, all of a sudden, or to be mulling it over, examining facets that were invisible to me. Maybe he was thinking of Franklin Knox, still cooling his heels in the anteroom. I’d thought Mr. Sullivan had forgotten him until he remarked in an aside to Mr. Rand that a little solitary would be good for the young fellow.
“I think we’d better have a little chat with Reverdy?” Mr. Sullivan said.
A lank shadow on the frosted glass preceded Reverdy in. He was a very unhappy Negro, resplendent in his grey flannels, frock coat and red tie pin. He had added to them a pink shirt and a celluolid collar that had enough finger prints on it to start a rogues’ gallery.
He bowed to each of us.
“Sit down, Hawkins,” Mr. Sullivan ordered. Reverdy sat gingerly on the corner of a chair.
“Reverdy!” said Mr. Sullivan, regarding the colored lawyer with the most benevolent friendliness. “You’ve been trying to sell Aunt Charlotte’s cabin to Mr. Sutton.”
“Yassuh. Ah mean No suh,” replied Reverdy hastily. “Ah’s only actin’ as her agent.”
“As Aunt Charlotte’s agent, Reverdy?”
“Yessuh.”
“Sure you’re not acting as somebody else’s agent, Reverdy?”
Reverdy was palpably nonplussed. He looked from one to the other of us. He moistened his thick dry lips and swallowed very much as a chicken does in swallowing a crust of bread.
Mr. Sullivan’s tone became still more confiding.
“Now look here, Reverdy. We don’t want to have to put you in jail for being implicated in this business. But there’s trouble about it. All we want to know is what you were doing in the grounds of Seaton Hall last night. Why you came out the King Charles Street gate, and what you’ve done with the money given you. Of course, Reverdy, you know you don’t have to explain this. You know enough about the law to know that if you don’t, I’ll have to put you downstairs on a charge of murder—accessory before the fact.”
Reverdy turned the color of a charred oak log covered with a thin film of greyish ash. He was badly frightened. He moistened his lips; his ludicrous top hat turned round and round in his long hands.
“ ’Deed an’ Ah’ll tell you Mistah Sullivan. All Ah knows ’bout it. Mistuh Fenton ask me to get Aunt Charlotte to sell that the’ place.”
He began as if the idea had never occurred to anyone before.
“An’ Ah did. An’ Ah went see Mistuh Sutton, an’ he done say he’ll pay $25,000 for that place. Then that evenin’ Mistah Fenton he phone to me an’ he say, it’s all off. An’ Ah says No suh, it ain’ all off noways. Then we has some talk, and Mistuh Fenton he done agree to pay me mah commission. Mah commission was all Ah wants. If Ah’ll let it go and tell Aunt Charlotte not to sell that place.”
“I see, Reverdy. But you decided you’d go ahead, eh?”
“No suh, no suh! Nothin’ of the sort, suh. Ah said Ah didn’ see mah way cleah. So Mistuh Fenton he get real mad. He says Ah’m to come to King Charles gate that night at twelve o’clock, he wants talk with me. Ah didn’ like it much, but ah goes.”
Mr. Sullivan understood perfectly. Somewhat boiled down, it seemed from Reverdy’s statement, which none of us dreamed of questioning, that Wally had met Reverdy and paid hin his “commission” and Reverdy had thereupon gone. He had no idea why Wally had changed his mind. Remembering Wally’s long talks with Mr. Baca after dinner, and Bill’s remark about his having declined the Ranch of the Spring of the Holy Ghost, I began to have a very definite notion why Wally had changed his mind.
Mr. Sullivan was finally convinced that Reverdy was merely the victim of his own cupidity and let him go.
“What do you think of that, now, Mrs. Niles?”
“I think,” I said, “that Mr. Sutton knew Wally was behind the business of the service station, Mr. Sullivan.”
I told him about my meeting Mr. Sutton at Aunt Charlotte’s the last evening.
“I wish you’d told me that before,” he said seriously.
“Mr. Sullivan,” I said.
“Yes, Mrs. Niles?”
“I think that if you’d ask Franklin Knox to come in, and tell him that you don’t think Thorn had anything to do with her uncle’s death, he’ll tell you what he knows.”
His eyes narrowed reflectively.
“But what if I do think she had something to do with it?”
“That’s preposterous, Sullivan,” Mr. Rand observed. “Anyone who knows that girl knows it’s absurd.”
“The income from three millions is a lot of money, Mr. Rand.”
“Not enough, Sullivan.”
“In any case,” I put in, “if Thorn Carter had done it, she wouldn’t have taken that revolver way down York Road and thrown it in the river.”
“Mrs. Niles is right, Sullivan,” Mr. Rand said. “That was done either by some one who is simple and logical, and did just the plainest and simplest thing to do, or it was done by a very subtle person, who did it that way to make people think it was done by someone who is simple and logical. And Thorn Carter is neither simple on the one hand nor subtle on the other.”
Mr. Sullivan chewed his lower lip, soberly meditating this bit of wisdom. He nodded suddenly.
“Let’s have the young fellow in,” he said briefly.
“And in the meantime, if you don’t mind,” I put in, “I’ve got to get along.”
Mr. Sullivan bowed and held the door open for me.
“May I tell my husband that he’s not in immediate danger of having his wife in jail for murder?” I inquired meekly.
“I’ll have to have notice of that question, Mrs. Niles.”
Thus neatly evaded, I went out into the anteroom. Franklin was gulping down a paper cup of water from the cooler. From the number of crushed cups on the floor around the waste basket I gathered he’d consumed great quantities of the State’s spring water. I felt he needed some encouragement, so when I passed him I said, “Don’t be a complete ass, Franklin. Good-bye.”
It was considerably after six o’clock, and the loungers in Court House Circle had separated an hour for supper. I turned from the Circle, with its pleasant mottled stockade of sycamore trees, down past St. Margaret’s Church to York Road. The campus was deserted. All the students were in the dining hall. Somebody’s radio was presenting a crooner to the empty street. As I reached my house the familiar figure of Dr. Knox came down the steps. Another man was with him.
“Good evening, Martha. I want you to meet Mr. Brice. I’ve just seen your husband, and the two of you are coming to the house for dinner this evening.”
I thought of the tense white-lipped young man I’d left in the State’s Attorney’s office.
“That’s nice,” I said. “Oh, by the way. I just saw Franklin.”
“Yes?” said Dr. Knox. He hesitated only a moment. “What’s he doing?”
“He’s all right. They’ve found the gun, and I think I’m finally going to be able to convince Franklin that Thorn didn’t do it.”
He nodded. “Good,” he said, with his old gentle urbanity. “We’ll see you at seven, then. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye.”
Mr. Brice and I bowed and I went in the house.
CHAPTER XXV
We had dinner at Dr. Knox’s that evening. Mr. Brice turned out to be an entertaining young man of twenty-eight or thereabouts, who came to be a considerable factor, as it turned out, in our lives. Mr. Rand and Franklin made up the rest of the party. Franklin looked much less harassed. I gathered that the interview with the State’s Attorney had cleared things up considerably. He and Mr. Rand left early and I went as far as my house with them, leaving Ben to smoke a pipe with Dr. Knox and his guest and to talk interminably about the college.
I could understand Franklin’s longing—so near the surface in his eyes—to get to Thorn, and I could understand Mr. Rand’s need to get back to Seaton Hall: he had something to say to Mr. Wally. I suppose as a matter of fact I could even understand Ben’s desire to smoke a pipe and discuss the college, so simple-minded is the academic soul. As for myself, my one desire was to go to bed and go fast asleep. I sent the sleepy student who stays with the children while we’re out home with his unopened History of Philosophy, and I retired.
I was waked the next morning by the always startling jangle of the telephone, just as Lillie came in with my breakfast. She set my tray down and handed me the phone.
It was Susan Atwood. And it was probably the first time in her life that Susan was up before ten.
“Hello, Martha!” she fairly gurgled.
“What’s the matter?” I said. “Are you ill?”
“No, Martha. But you’ve got to come over. I’ve got a secret to tell you.”
I’ve been the recipient of many of Susan’s secrets, all of which have been totally uninspiring.
“If it won’t keep you’d better tell me now, unless you’re coming over here. Because I’m not up. I’ve not had my breakfast, and I’m not coming near your place for at least two hours.”
“Then I’ll tell you. You won’t breathe a word of it? Promise, hope to die?”
I repeated the pledge solemnly.
“You’re not being serious, Martha!”
“Perfectly serious, Sue. What is it? My breakfast’s getting cold.”
“Well, then—I’m eloping!”
“Oh yes,” I said, not very much surprised at anything Susan said—or did.
“Eloping, darling.”
“Who with, or is that part of the secret? Or do you know?”
“It’s all a secret, Martha. With Sebastien!”
“Susan—you’re not!” I cried, almost upsetting my tray.
“I am too. I’m going this evening.”
I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t think of anything to say. I’m very fond of Susan, and the idea of her running off with a man she’d known two days was unthinkable. My silence became ominous, I imagine, at the other end of the wire.
“What’s the matter, Martha?” asked a small wistful voice.
“Nothing, darling. I’m surprised, that’s all.”
“You won’t tell anybody?”
“Of course I won’t. But listen—will you do something for me?”
“Surely.”
“Don’t go until we’ve talked it over. Promise?”
“That’s a go. Bye-bye, Martha.”
I put back the phone and sat staring at my coffee cup. It was silly of me. There wasn’t any reason that Susan shouldn’t marry Sebastien Baca if she chose; and apparently she did. I knew nothing against him, and I’d trust Susan’s instincts anywhere. She must have recognized him as the right sort or she wouldn’t have been so instantly drawn to him. More than that, I’m convinced that people—women as well as men—must take life as it comes to them. If it came to Susan this way, that was just part of it. Susan is too pure metal to be hurt, I thought. Then I thought of a gold cup I’d seen Dr. Myerfrank dig up in Tuscany. It was tarnished—and I didn’t want Susan tarnished, even if she could be polished up again like the Tuscan cup.
I thought about Sebastien Baca while I bathed and dressed. The idea, never very far from my mind, that he knew Colonel Arbuthnot-Howe, kept cropping persistently up to plague me. Why had he looked so startled at lunch when the Englishman’s name was mentioned? Why had he stiffened when Miss Carter asked Colonel Arbuthnot-Howe if he’d been in Mexico? Why, to take another point, had Colonel Arbuthnot-Howe asked me to find out how sick he was that morning?
Then a new crop of questions. Was it true that he’d consulted Mr. Sutton on the matter of the ranch? Was it true that he didn’t know Mr. Sutton had been murdered? Or was he putting on an act for the benefit of Mrs. Niles, friend of the family? Why had he and Wally been so thick before the swimming party, when Wally had been so obviously rude to him at lunch? Why had Wally been so absolutely “sunk” when we met the two of them sitting on a marble bench in the linden avenue on our way to the river? Why had Mr. Baca been so entirely debonair?
Gradually I came to the swimming party itself. What was the meaning of Sebastien Baca’s accident? Was it anything more than that? What had Colonel Arbuthnot-Howe meant by what he said about a bruise on the Mexican’s face? Why was Wally so upset? I remembered now that even Dan had seemed to notice that something was wrong. Mr. Baca was a marvellous swimmer; so was Wally. For an instant I closed my eyes. The picture of Wally’s hag-ridden face in the clear moonlight, as Arbuthnot-Howe mentioned that bruised face, flashed across my mind. I decided I had to talk with Susan.
Lafayette opened the door for me.
“Mornin’ Miss. How is you, Miss?”
“Good morning, Lafayette. I’m well. How’re you?”
“Ah’ m well Miss. It’s a nice day.”
“That’s good, Lafayette. It is a nice day.”
“How’s the doctor, Miss, and them children?”
“They’re all right, Lafayette. Is anybody down?”
“That’s good, Miss. Yas’m, Miss Susan’s outside and so’s Mistah Bill. Mistah Nathan’s in the liberry talkin’ to Mistah Sullivan.”
“Thanks, Lafayette,” I said. “I’ll go outside.”
I went through the hall and out on the wide verandah. Seaton’s long green velvet carpet stretched softly down to the glistening dancing river. Everything was gorgeously vital and alive. A cardinal lighted on the grass like a single drop of blood.
“Hello,” said a gloomy voice at my side.
&
nbsp; I turned around. It was Bill, lying on his spine in a grass chair, his long legs stretched uselessly in front of him. He was the very picture of dejection.
“Hello!” I said. “What’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing.”
“Splendid. Where’s Susan?”
He hunched himself up with a savage jerk and threw his cigarette violently on the flags.
“Down in the orangery talking to that damn Spaniard.”
I looked placidly at him.
“Sebastien,” he added, with a mocking imitation of Susan.
“I see,” I said.
“Do you know what she did, Martha?” he demanded, running his hand through his crisp curly hair.
“Haven’t the faintest.”
“She went in there—in the library—and got out a picture of some beastly saint, all stuck full of arrows, and hung the damn thing up in her room. She said it was St. Sebastien.”
“So it was if it was all full of arrows,” I said peaceably. “He’s a very respectable saint, as you’d know if you knew anything at all about saints.”
“So she said. I told her if she didn’t stop following him around like a puppy I’d fill him full of worse than arrows. It’s disgusting.”
He hunched forward, staring out down the green terraces, miserably hut righteously indignant.
“Why so?” I inquired.
“Look here, Martha,” he said. “You’re not going to sit here and see her throw herself away at that . . . that . . .”
“That what?”
“That Mexican?”
“What’s the matter with him, Bill?”
He stared at me as if I’d lost my mind. Then he shrugged his shoulders.
“Oh, nothing, I guess,” he admitted after a moment. “Only I . . . I don’t like it. I guess that’s all.”
He jumped up and did a couple of absurd turns up and down the verandah.
“Then do something about it,” I said. “Don’t sit here like an idiot.”
With that sage bit of advice I went inside and upstairs to Thorn’s room. She was in front of her dressing table, singing that fish gotta swim and birds gotta fly. I understood the conclusion to be that she intended to love Franklin until she died.
