“You must of called him up sometime.”
“I’m sure that neither my wife nor I—” Conway began, with what he realized was too glacial a dignity. Then he remembered. “Wait a minute. George and Peggy Gordon came here for dinner one night. George had to work after dinner, so Peggy suggested we try to get this Taylor to make a fourth at bridge. I don’t remember whether my wife or Mrs. Gordon made the call. At any rate, he didn’t come over.”
“Well, makes no difference. Mind if I take this? Save me copying down all these addresses and phone numbers.”
“Go ahead.”
“I’ll be getting along.” The detective turned to the dresser to close the drawer. With his hands on the handles, his eyes lingered for a perceptible moment on the contents inside; then, slowly, he closed it. What caused the hesitation Conway had no way of knowing, but he felt the all too familiar tightening of his throat.
The shrill clamor of the doorbell stopped him as he followed the detective from the room. Bauer stopped at the head of the stairs to let Conway precede him.
“I don’t feel like talking to anybody right now,” Conway said. “Would you do me a favor — see who it is, and try to get rid of them?”
“Sure.” The detective started down.
“I’ll wait up here. Call me when they’ve gone.” Conway retreated into Helen’s room, closed the door, and went directly to the dresser.
He pulled out the drawer as far as Bauer had and stood looking into it. The gloves lay in the corner, undisturbed; their whiteness and newness were so glaring that it seemed as though they rested in the beam of a spotlight, that made all the other contents of the drawer appear to be in shadow. Why was I such a fool? he asked himself. Why put them back here, on top of everything? I could have wrapped them up, put them in any drawer, or under the handkerchiefs, or in the back. I knew they might be evidence — why flaunt them in the face of this birdbrain?
But when he took them to the window to examine them in the sunlight, he could find no reason for his panic. To the naked eye, even of a considerably more astute observer than Sergeant Bauer, there was no evidence that the gloves had ever been worn. The police had not questioned him about his activities the afternoon before the murder; therefore they did not know the gloves had been purchased then. There was no reason for Bauer to attach any significance whatever to the gloves. But what, then, had caused him to pause before closing the drawer?
Conway returned the gloves to their place, afraid, now that Bauer had seen them, to move them to a less conspicuous spot. He stared into the drawer from where Bauer had stood, and then, remembering the other’s height, stooped to make himself three inches shorter. There was the usual clutter of a woman’s catch-all drawer: a couple of handbags, scarves, handkerchiefs, a few letters, a bank statement. Aside from the gloves, there was nothing in the drawer which had the slightest connection with the death of his wife.
Bauer’s voice, from downstairs, interrupted him. “Come down here, will you, Mr. Conway?”
He shut the drawer, convinced now that his alarm had been caused by some figment of his imagination, but genuinely frightened at the realization that he had let himself become panicked. He had not betrayed himself to Bauer, he was sure, but it had been close; anyone a little less obtuse than the detective might have noticed something. He was in the clear; not a glimmer of suspicion had been directed at him. And none would be, unless he himself directed the suspicion. That was the one thing he had to remember.
Chapter seven
As Conway reached the head of the stairs, he saw Bauer holding the front door open. A girl, carrying a suitcase and an overnight bag, came in. “Thank you,” she said frigidly to the detective. Then she looked up and saw Conway descending the stairs. She put down the bags and smiled up at him. “Hello, Arthur,” she said.
Bauer looked at Conway, and Conway looked from the girl to the detective and back again. He had never seen her before in his life. What kind of trick is this? he wondered.
“Don’t recognize me, do you?” she said. He shook his head, completely bewildered.
“I’m Betty.”
It was a moment before the name registered. “Helen’s sister?” he finally said.
“Half-sister.”
“You didn’t tell me she had a sister,” Bauer said.
“Half-sister,” Betty corrected. “And I must say you haven’t been very polite.”
Conway tried to pull himself out of the stunned inertia produced by the announcement of her identity. “This is Detective Sergeant Bauer,” he said.
She gave Bauer the briefest of looks, and he acknowledged the introduction with an unintelligible mutter.
“Surprised to see me?” she said with another smile at Conway.
“Yes — yes, I am. How did you get here? I wired you only last night.”
“I’d left by then. I heard about it on the radio, and then the Topeka paper called me up, and I thought — well, that I ought to hurry out here in case there was anything I could do. So I caught a plane last night, and just got here.” Conway stared at her stonily. “I must say I expected a more cordial reception than this. Aren’t you even going to ask me to sit down?”
“Yes — of course — please come in.” Conway led the way to the living room, his brain still in turmoil. This didn’t make sense: this girl, who had not seen Helen for over five years, who had not communicated with her in four, suddenly popping up like this. He had to get rid of Bauer, so that he might find out why.
“What I really want to do,” Betty said as she came into the living room, “is to take a bath and get into some other clothes. When you’ve been sitting up all night, you don’t feel very fresh, do you?”
Bauer planted himself between Conway and the girl. “You never told me she had a sister,” he said again.
“Well, I—”
“Half-sister,” Betty repeated. “He probably forgot I existed. I haven’t seen Helen for years, and we never wrote, and in fact we weren’t on very good terms ever since Mama died and left everything to me, because Helen wouldn’t stay home, but went to New York. Not that there was very much.”
Conway looked at her as she spoke. She was certainly a far cry from the girl Helen had contemptuously described as a “cold little fish.” She was not little, and the predominant impression she gave was of warmth and vitality. She was dark, with large brown eyes, a delicately modeled face, and a delectable figure: the complete antithesis of Helen’s flagrantly blonde amplitude. The sparkle of her eyes belied the sobriety and matter-of-factness of her dress and speech.
“Why’d you come out here if you weren’t on very good terms with her?” Bauer asked. “Have you any information you think might help us?”
“Good heavens, no.” She looked at Conway. “I just came out because I thought I might be able to help Arthur through this dreadful tragedy.”
It was plain that Bauer was suspicious of something; it was equally clear that he was not quite sure of what. “Then you two are pretty good friends, eh?”
“No, Sergeant — I—” Conway began.
“I hope we will be,” Betty said. “But I’d never laid eyes on him until I just walked in the door.” Bauer eyed Conway, uncertain of what to believe. “And now, Sergeant, tell me what progress you’ve made on the case.” She’s been seeing too many movies, Conway thought.
The detective glared at her. “No comment,” he said.
“I don’t think I care for your attitude,” Betty said coldly. “I happen to be the second-next-of-kin. You might remember that you are a servant of the people.”
“I’m nobody’s servant,” the detective said truculently. “And let me tell you something else—”
Conway stepped between them, as though to separate two people who were about to come to blows. This is one way to get rid of Bauer, he thought, the worst possible way. “Please,” he said, “there’s no point in being unpleasant. The sergeant has nothing to tell you. Betty, because he’s already told the newspapers eve
rything he knows — everything, that is, which he thinks it advisable, at this time, to make public.” Out of the corner of his eye, Conway could see Bauer beginning to soften. “He’s been very frank with me, but I know there are a lot of things he hasn’t told me, simply because he doesn’t think it good policy to discuss them with anyone. If you’ll read the morning papers there, you’ll know as much as I do, which is just about all anyone does — with the exception of the sergeant.”
“I read the papers coming in from the airport,” she said. “Why do they say it’s a sex maniac?”
She’s going to do it, Conway thought. I don’t know why or when or how, but she’s going to do it. She’s going to hang me.
Bauer answered her without hesitation. “Who else would it be?” he asked.
“That’s a silly kind of reasoning,” Betty said. “There are supposed to be two million people in Los Angeles, and half of them are women, so if there was a sex maniac around, it’s a million to one he wouldn’t pick Helen. Can’t you think of something where the odds wouldn’t be quite so much against you?”
Conway found himself somewhat dizzied by this reasoning, but not Bauer. “Look,” he said. “The odds are ten million to one against your getting struck by lightning, but if you get hit, it don’t matter what the odds are — you’re dead. Right? Right. Well, your sister’s dead.”
“Half-sister,” Betty said. “And that’s just my point. If you find somebody lying down dead after a thunderstorm, you don’t just say they were struck by lightning. Right?” She waited for an answer, but none was forthcoming. “Right,” she affirmed.
Bauer opened his mouth twice, like a seal coming up for air, but if he planned to say anything, he thought better of it. On the third try he said, “I’ve got to go,” and went for his hat. At the door he turned to Betty.
“Where will you be if I want to get hold of your” he asked.
“I suppose what you mean is if you want to communicate with me,” she said. “And I’ll be right here, naturally.”
Conway’s jaw dropped and the detective’s eyes widened. “Here?” he said.
“After all, the reason I came out was to help Arthur through this awful thing,” she said.
“But you can’t stay here with me,” Conway said.
“Well, we can talk about it later. You’ll let me stay long enough to have a bath and change my clothes, won’t you?”
“Yes — I suppose so.”
“Then I’ll do that right now, if the sergeant will excuse me. Would you mind bringing the luggage up, and showing me which room you want me to use?” She started up the stairs, and Conway felt the detective eying him.
“I’ll drop in the next time I’m in the neighborhood,” Bauer said, and there was something in the tone that chilled Conway. He closed the door after the sergeant, and walked slowly up the stairs with Betty’s bags.
He found her already in Helen’s room.
“I’m dying to talk to you,” she said. “And you must want to ask me a lot of things. But do you mind waiting till after I’ve bathed and changed? I’ll feel so much better then.” She looked up from hunting the zipper on the side of her skirt, and gave him what could only be described as a winning smile.
He wanted desperately to talk to her, to find out what her game was. But he didn’t know where to begin; he needed time to think, to plan his strategy. He had never been more unsure of himself. Perhaps this was the breathing space he needed; it would give him time to pull himself together.
“I’ll put some towels in the bathroom,” he said, and went out and closed the door.
Downstairs, he listened to the bedroom door open, the bathroom door close, and the bath being run. Some time later he heard the water running out of the tub, the bathroom door open, and the bedroom door close. And insistently he searched for the reason for her being here. Why had she come? There was, of course, one possible reason which was almost too frightening to contemplate: that Helen had written her recently. What Helen might have said that had roused her suspicions, he could not imagine; Helen certainly had had no inkling of the fate in store for her. But, he thought, that was not essential, because almost anything Helen would have said in a recent letter would be enough to give the lie to the story of their relationship he had already told the police. No matter how little this girl knew, it was too much. The mere fact of her presence had already roused Bauer’s suspicions, however vague. Anything she might inadvertently say could be enough to make those suspicions dangerously concrete. He knew that Bauer would make a point of talking to her, questioning her. And regardless of how stupid or clumsy he might be, it was inevitable that he would learn something.
All this, of course, was assuming that the girl had not purposely come for some sinister reason of her own. But had she some devious scheme in mind which had brought her here so quickly? Blackmail, perhaps? It was more than possible. She had seemingly tried to antagonize Bauer, so her project might not involve the police. Conway began to realize that his plan for the perfect murder was something considerably less than that: it was good chiefly in that it provided him with an alibi; it had served to divert suspicion, at first glance, from himself and point to another, unknown culprit. Already she had managed to point at least a tiny finger of suspicion at him. The chance coincidence, which he had rejected as unworthy of his story, was intruding itself into his life with no regard for its lack of artistic merit.
What would her next move be? He had to talk to her, try to find out what lay behind this hurried trip, but he had not the vaguest notion of where to start. One thing he did know: if he was not able to persuade her to return home immediately, he would have to let her remain in the house; it would be too dangerous to have her on the loose, available at any time to Bauer or, perhaps, some shrewder, more acute questioner. Here he might be able to have some control over her meetings with the police.
“They say planes aren’t dirty, but I must say I feel a lot less soiled than I did.” The voice came from the top of the stairs, and Conway turned and watched her as she descended. She was wearing a light, printed silk dress which caressed an enchanting figure, and her hair, freed now of a hat, made a luscious frame for the piquant face. The picture held him for only a moment; it was crowded out almost instantly by the fears and desperate suspicions she aroused in him, but because he still did not know what he was going to say, nor even how to begin, he said nothing. Betty apparently found this a normal reaction: there was no trace of embarrassment or coquettishness as she walked into the room.
“That detective was something to get rid of, wasn’t he?” she said.
“Why were you so anxious to get rid of him?”
“I wanted to talk to you, naturally — and I thought maybe you’d be a little curious about my turning up this way.”
She’s not going to hold back, Conway thought. She’s going to come out with it. At least I’ll know where I stand. “I’m more than a little curious,” he said.
“For one thing, I did want to see if I could be of any help to you. You wouldn’t know about this, but I’ve had sort of a schoolgirl crush on you ever since Helen sent on your picture and told us about you, when you got married. I’d always wanted to meet you, but then, of course, when Mama died, and Helen got so furious, there didn’t seem to be much chance of that. So this is the first chance I’ve had to meet my only living relative.”
The combination of naiveté and utter poise was engaging, her sincerity was disarming, and Conway decided that she was going to be more devious than he had expected. “There couldn’t have been another reason, could there?” he asked.
“Well, yes, in a way. You see, I’ll probably be getting married one of these days, and if I marry in Topeka I probably wouldn’t ever go anyplace much. I have this little income from Mama’s house, and I’ve always wanted to see California, and this seemed like a good time to do it. Can you fix it so I can go through one of the studios?”
“No,” Conway said, “I’ve never been in one myself.”
“Really? That’s too bad. Well, maybe I’ll meet someone while I’m here who could arrange it.”
“Just how long are you planning to stay?”
“I don’t know exactly. It all depends.”
“On what, if I’m not too inquisitive?”
“Oh, lots of things. My financial status, and what turns up out here, and how much I like California, and — it gets awfully hot in the summer in Topeka, you know.”
“And awfully cold in the winter.”
“Yes.” Then she realized his implication. “But I wouldn’t impose on you indefinitely — I’d find an apartment.”
“I see. No other reasons for the trip?”
“No,” she said, a little puzzled at his tone. “That’s all.”
“A desire to pay your respects to Helen’s memory wasn’t one of them, obviously.” He realized how stuffy he sounded before he even finished the sentence.
“You and I don’t have to be hypocritical about that, do we?” What does she know? he asked himself. What does she mean, you and I?
“When was the last time you heard from Helen?” he said.
“Right after Mama died — when she heard about the will. She was going to try to break it, but a Topeka lawyer advised her against it, and then she wrote me, and called me a lot of names, and said she never wanted to hear from me again. So — she didn’t.”
“She never wrote you after we moved out here?”
“I didn’t even know you had.”
“Then how did you know where we lived? You seem to have headed for this house like a homing pigeon.”
“Well, really,” she said with some exasperation, “with your name and picture and address in every paper in town, that wasn’t awfully difficult.”
“Oh.” He felt a little foolish at his inept effort to trap her. “Just what kind of help did you expect to be to me?”
“Why, cook and keep house, and keep people from bothering you. Being a writer, I’m sure you wouldn’t be very good at those things yourself. Of course, that’s one of the things about you that always appealed to me — being a writer, I mean. There’s something sort of glamorous about a writer.”
The Eleventh Hour Page 9
