by Emma Lathen
Marsden’s face darkened. “Luck may have been playing for him, it certainly wasn’t playing for me. The police were certain that I sneaked out of Franklin House, went over to the Inn, and murdered Sprague.”
“The police must have abandoned that idea very early,” said John with conviction. “We should have all recognized the importance of your collapse.”
“Dunlop was still sensitive on the subject. “You weren’t the only one they suspected, Neil. They didn’t much like the fact that I was the one who promoted the move from Deke House back to the Inn. They thought I was setting up Sprague.” He smiled reassuringly at his wife and squeezed her hand when she made an involuntary sound of protest. “Come on, Lou, you half thought so yourself for a while.”
“I didn’t know what to think,” she confessed. “If you could forget you were married, you could do almost anything.” Then she smiled radiantly. “But now I realize you didn’t really forget. You were just reliving your college days.”
“That’s it.”
They were both lying. But they were both happy again because Lou had learned to live with the idea she was married to a man who could get drunk at a reunion weekend, and Jim had reconciled himself to the fact that a wife must grow into knowing her husband.
John hastened to prevent further revelations. He turned to Marsden. “The police decided you were innocent very soon.”
“Ralph certainly didn’t help any,” said Marsden bitterly. “He made me sound as suspicions as possible. After that I did my best to find out what he was up to.”
“I think he was trying to divert suspicion from himself,” John mused. “The police were looking at him closely long before they learned the motive.”
Marsden looked doubtful.
John began to spell it out. “Ideally the murderer should have known two things. First that your room at the Inn would be vacant. Second that Sprague was at the Inn. How could you have known where Sprague would be? And if you simply seized the opportunity to murder him, then why did you leave Franklin House surreptitiously? And how could Dunlop have known your room would be vacant? But there was no question Ralph knew both things. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that he engineered the move from Deke House to the Inn in the first place.”
Dunlop tried to recall the hazy events of that memorable evening. “He may have,” he finally admitted. “I think he did say something about the Deke boys wanting the place to themselves when he came back to pick up his car. But I’m almost certain that I was the one who mentioned getting Sprague out of there.”
“He could count on that. You had already sympathized with Lucy’s concern over Sprague earlier in the evening. If somebody then said that the night was about to turn into an orgy unsuitable for older grads, you could be relied on to think it would be even more unsuitable for a teenager.”
Dunlop remained unconvinced. He did not appreciate the idea Ralph had used him as a cat’s paw. Lou, with tact that was beginning to develop without conscious volition, turned the conversation. “And then Ralph didn’t have anything to worry about after he had murdered Sprague?”
“Far from it,” John retorted grimly. “The only thing standing between him and being number one suspect was the Patterson mystery. He set out to capitalize upon that immediately. Before the night was out rumors had started that Patterson was at the Reunion.
George remembered their Sunday morning breakfast at the president’s house. “Was it Ralph who phoned to say Patterson was in Franklin House?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised. He was certainly up very early doing his bit to keep that particular ball rolling.”
Marsden nodded to himself as if some earlier suspicions were being confirmed. “And he really didn’t know where Elliot was?”
“No. That was precisely the problem,” John said energetically. “Patterson was now a greater danger than ever to Ralph. He could provide the motive for the murder. Ralph determined that he should find Patterson before anyone else did. I doubt if he was very clear in his own mind what he was going to do — whether he was going to try to bargain or resort to murder again. I do know that he was rapidly going to pieces under the hourly suspense, never knowing when he would hear that Patterson was safely locked up in a cell out of reach as the Dartmouth Office had been. That’s why he virtually abandoned his business to chase down Patterson.
Dunlop confirmed this information. “He did, you know. At the time I was amazed how much running around he was doing. I even compared him unfavorably to you,” the young man said to Marsden. “He didn’t really ask me to do anything except make that trip to Portsmouth when a bond turned up there.”
“And he knew it was the wrong bond of course,” John added. “For the excellent reason that he had the right one in his safety deposit box.”
Lucy pounced instantly. “They’ve actually found the bond then?”
“Oh yes. I suppose once Ralph committed murder for it, he couldn’t bring himself to destroy it.”
“Well Mrs. Curtis will be happy about that,” Marsden smiled. “She’s probably doing a war dance of triumph.”
A warning buzzer shrilled into the silence as a reminder that Elizabethan music was around the corner. Everyone began to stub out cigarettes and pick up their programs.
“She isn’t the only one to come out of this well,” Dunlop reflected, pocketing his wife’s cigarette case and lighter. “I hear that Dartmouth’s fundraising is going to be handled by Target in the future.”
John lifted his eyebrows in amused inquiry. He knew only that, with the latest rash of publicity, Todd had retreated into the hands of his medical advisers.
George avoided John’s eye as he picked up Lucy’s purse. Lyman has been ordered to take things easy,” he said carefully. “Regular hours and no traveling for now. So he had a long talk with Gabe to fill that gap.”
Heroically John refrained from comment. Not so Marsden. “Apparently it pays to have absconding employees. At least people get to know about you. I’m surprised Gabe isn’t here tonight, looking over prospects.”
John was inspecting the slow seepage towards the main aisle. “He is,” he said suddenly, indicating a group of three people coming into view. “Target is out in full force.”
Gabe, Marian, and the tall grey haired handsome man by Marian’s side paused in their progress. Greetings were exchanged. Enthusiastically Lucy seized Marian. “How nice to see you again. What are you doing here?”
Marian was unabashed. “We thought it was the least we could do for Dartmouth.”
“And how is Baxter?” John asked dryly. “I suppose you hear from him?”
“Oh yes,” she smiled. “Alec is very happy at last. He feels he did the right thing.” And still smiling she moved on.
She left a dissatisfied Lou in her wake. “But what about Alec Baxter?” she protested. “Didn’t he have anything to do with it? And whatever happened to Elliot Patterson?”
“That,” John said, is another story.”
Chapter 25
The Sheltering Pines
After the raw biting winds and soot laden smog of New York in December, John and George were almost mesmerized by the quiet cloister in Gethsemane, Alabama. It was not so much the warmth as the heavy languor of the air, laden with a hundred sweet scents from the shrubs and flowers in bloom. The stillness was reinforced, rather than interrupted, by an occasional rustle of leaves or the single clear call of a bird. Already shadows were creating a glade of coolness by the west wall.
The three men had been silent for some time.
“Yes,” said John at last. “I’m afraid that you will have to testify Mr. Patterson.”
Elliot Patterson continued to gaze sightlessly at a single white cloud low on the horizon. “Of course it was all over when they found out I wasn’t Alec Baxter.”
“They were bound to find out some time,” George said, but his voice held none of its usual impatience when stating the obvious.
“Not necessarily,” Patterson continued
with the same dispassionate detachment. “That’s why I chose Baxter. It had to be a Protestant bachelor, somebody whose paper background I knew very well. I was hesitating between four names when Alec told me he was off to Europe for a few years. It seemed almost providential.”
Under the circumstances John and George could do nothing but start at each other wordlessly. Their silence seemed to communicate some message to Patterson.
“I suppose you don’t understand,” he said. “I’m not sure that I do myself. But when I tried to explain it to Sally she started to talk about Sunday schools. I tried, for weeks, I really did try. But everything became very confused. I suppose I didn’t make myself very clear. She didn’t seem to understand what I wanted at all. Then, when I began to want more, the whole situation because impossible. Of course, now, I realize I was wrong, very wrong. I should have gone on trying.”
George shuffled his feet, saying then, “It must have been very hard.”
Elliot looked at them earnestly. He had exchanged his horn-rimmed glasses for round steel spectacles. Behind the lens his faded blue eyes shone with sincerity.
“I deceived myself. I pretended that I was taking Baxter’s name for conversion only. But all along I knew I intended to go into orders. I was planning it all, but I wouldn’t admit it to myself. Not until I actually applied to the Brothers of Silence.” He expelled a soft breath. “It seemed so safe. I was sure no one would ever know.”
John was relieved to introduce a pedestrian note. “Marian Knightley knew.”
“Marian?”
“Yes. Alec Baxter told the Knightleys all about his plan to go to Europe and drop out of sight while he worked quietly there. They even saw him off on his ship. And he’s written to them since then. A soon as she saw your letter of recommendation she guessed what happened.”
It was very curious. Patterson seemed to recall his wife and children with difficulty, as if stretching his mind back over a gulf of decades. But he spoke naturally and with perfect ease about Marian. “Marian wouldn’t understand. I suppose she was the one who told you about me.”
John denied this promptly. “Oh no. Not only did she keep your secret, she persuaded Gabe to do the same.”
Patterson evinced his first emotion. “I wonder why she did that?”
“She doesn’t believe in interfering. Or at least that’s what she told us.”
John inspected Patterson closely. Did Patterson have the slightest idea of the compassion that had motivated Marian? He thought not. It was not surprising that he had been unable to communicate his feelings to his wife. Patterson was kind, considerate, and conscientious. But he had not the least understanding of people. If his wife had failed to understand his needs and desires, he had been equally at fault in understanding hers.
Now Patterson dismissed the enigma of Marian’s behavior. “But if she didn’t tell you how did you find out?”
“We would have found out one way or the other. As it was, Father Martin described you accurately. A man in a business suit, he said, looking like a lawyer.
Elliot frowned. “But how did you know that was me?”
“We didn’t have to. We knew it wasn’t Baxter,” John replied.
Patterson lost interest in the history of his undoing. “The Brothers have been very kind. But of course they are sad and disappointed.”
John felt every sympathy for the Brothers. As he watched Patterson struggle for some further expression of his thoughts, he was aware of an elusive resemblance to someone or something. What was it that Patterson reminded him of so persistently?
A gentle sigh from the black garbed figure broke the silence. “The whole thing is very unfortunate.”
“Yes,” said Thatcher who agreed sadly, “’very unfortunate.’”
Was now the time to break it to Patterson that the explanations and apologies anticipated would not be necessary? Should he explain that Sally, undeterred by her husband’s innocence in the eyes of the law, had departed for places unknown?” That the house in Rye was now occupied by some people called Fenster with three charming boys?”
No he decided, joining George in farewells, there were some burdens that Patterson would have to shoulder himself. Presumably he would have the support of the Brothers, those saddened and disappointed Brothers, in his forthcoming trials.
As they passed through the entranceway to the courtyard, a priest, newly arrived, carried a heavy overcoat and a black briefcase, and was busily talking to the monk in the lodge.
“Yes, yes, Father Martin,” the lodge keeper was saying, “I’ll let him know that you’ve arrived.”
And suddenly John knew what elusive recollection had been stirred to life by Patterson. He was the slow careful driver entering a speedway at a thoughtful 25 miles per hour. Behind him brakes are jammed on and 17 cars pile up in a chain reaction. Or, as in this case, he leaves in his wake a murdered boy, middle aged man sitting in a jail cell, and a wife and mother suddenly staring at her three daughters in wild incomprehension.
But the careful drive proceeds slowly forward, his ears forever sealed to the sounds of grinding metal and splintering glass directly behind him, to the cries of human distress and bewilderment.
“Did you hear who that was?” demanded George.
“Yes, yes, I heard.” John shook himself and spoke more briskly.
“That was Elliot Patterson’s latest victim.”
Chapter 26
Epilogue
John and George were back in New York, just having enjoyed one of Matthilde’s fabulous meals enhanced by the Lancer’s wine collection and now their brandy.
John said, “Well, Lucy, that was a fabulous meal and enhanced by your spectacular brandy. While George and I were down in Alabama I believe you were still active, to put it gently.”
Lucy smiled and said, “Yes. While George and you were haring around someone had to look out for the bank’s interests.”
George braced himself by taking a larger sip of the brandy. John looked expectantly.
“Well first, I talked to Pete and he said after all the goings on he and the other two boys couldn’t go anyplace but Dartmouth, so we got that done.”
John blinked and said, “What did the Maestro say?” John could tell from Lucy’s brilliant smile that something big was up.
“John, Pete told the maestro about you, sticking with it, and solving things. He signed up his Dad to be a banking customer and suggested that his friends be too.”
“And what did the Maestro say?”
“Well he said the Romans learned from the Greeks so the new Romans, the Italians, should learn from the Americans. I did tell them about the balance on your team with Trinkham and Gabler, but I thought he would get on best with Bowman. Apparently they can both talk at the same time and be understood by each other.”
“And what else,” John followed up.
“George admitted that Neil Marsden was no longer a twerp and had grown out of it.”
George nodded, but John could see that Lucy had extracted that thought. It had not been voluntary.
“And what is next?”
Lucy said, “John, I know you aren’t big on curators and such things but, for me, the maestro has invited us all to front and center seats at his next New York concert. Afterward he is coming here for a late dinner and drinks. Of course, he is bringing Pete and his two new friends if they care to come.”
John smiled and thought well perhaps the bank would be better off with Miss Corsa and Lucy as opposed to George and him. With that generous thought, he thought that justified another brandy which he noticed that Lucy had already poured for him.
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