“Uh-huh. They caught the cat burglar tonight.”
Lydia came over to sit next to him, seating herself on the edge of the sofa, half facing him, her hands folded in her lap. “Who was it?”
“Herman Potts.”
She looked at him in astonishment. “That silly fellow who’s always sitting in front of City Hall?”
“Uh-huh. He made a complete confession. He wasn’t on Betty’s roof the night Bruce was shot.”
Lydia searched his face. “You think he was lying?”
“No. He wasn’t there.”
She was silent for a time. Presently she said, “You’re not beginning to think she actually is guilty, are you?”
“Are you?” he countered.
“No. Even if she is my rival, I can’t see her deliberately planning murder. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
He gave her an amused smile. “You’re jumping the gun. I haven’t lost faith in her. I just have an entirely new theory of what happened that night.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“I don’t want to talk about it until after I’ve seen somebody Monday, because if I’m wrong, my theory would make me look like a damn fool.”
“Then let’s hope you’re right,” she said. “Would you like a drink?”
He merely shook his head. Conversation temporarily lapsed as he gazed at her moodily, his mind on other things so that he was only half aware of her presence. Then it gradually registered on him that under the glare of the floor lamp immediately behind the sofa, her nightgown was almost completely transparent. He ran his gaze over the white swell of her breasts beneath the gauzy material until she flushed.
“You’ve seen them before,” she said. “Do you want me to put on a robe?”
“I was admiring, not disapproving,” he said, reaching out both hands to cup one firm cone in each.
Her hands raised from her lap in an instinctively protective gesture, then dropped back again. “The way you’ve been avoiding me, I thought perhaps you’d found some new toys to play with.”
“You know why I’ve been staying away. There aren’t any toys in town as pretty as these.” He rubbed his palms over her nipples.
She continued to sit stiff-backed, looking straight into his face, her hands still folded in her lap. He could feel the tips of her breasts begin to enlarge beneath the cloth as he continued his gentle massage. After a moment she leaned slightly forward to increase the pressure and an oddly strained expression appeared on her face.
She said, “I was going to make you beg when you finally came back after deserting me for over a week.”
“You were? Just for that I think I’ll make you beg.”
His massage became a trifle less gentle. She still sat unmoving, her body stiffly erect, but now her lips parted and the strain in her face became acute.
“Aren’t you going to do anything else?” she asked in a whisper.
“You can have anything you beg for,” he said.
“That’s not fair,” she protested. “I was going to make you do the begging.”
Grinning, he continued his rhythmic massage. Suddenly she emitted a little despairing cry, grabbed his wrists to spread his arms apart and threw herself against him. Her arms snaked about his neck and her lips searched for his. He drew his head back.
“Beg,” he said.
“Oh, God, take me,” she moaned. “Please, Kirk. I can’t stand it another second.”
“Beg a little harder.”
“I’ll do anything you say,” she said. “But take me. Please!”
Putting his arms about her waist, he drew her against him and fastened his lips over hers. As their tongues touched, her body stiffened, she emitted a little gasp and she alternately went limp and stiffened several times in a spasmlike manner.
“See what you did?” she said against his neck in a reproachful voice. “It’s been too long, and then you teased me too much. The reason I couldn’t sleep is because I was thinking about you. Why didn’t you grab me the minute you walked in the door?”
“You’ll be ready again before I get your nightgown off,” he told her, slipping one arm beneath her knees and coming to his feet with her cradled against his chest.
Carrying her into the bedroom, he flicked on the light switch with one elbow, unceremoniously tossed her into the corner of the bed and began to strip off his clothing. She lay still, gazing at him until he came over to stand looking down at her.
“You intend to keep on that nightgown?” he asked.
“You said you’d take it off,” she said in a whisper.
A moment later the garment was rolled into a ball and he had tossed it across the room. She pressed her bare body against his.
“Please don’t tease me any more,” she begged.
It happened several times more, but not because he was teasing her. When the final simultaneous spasm occurred, she continued to hold him tightly against her.
“Every time it’s like a brand-new experience,” she said dreamily. “Do you think people ever get tired of this?”
He kissed the end of her nose. “The day I get tired, I’ll enter a Trappist monastery. The hell with the out-of-town reporters.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not staying away to protect your good name any longer. If they make a thing of it, let them. I’m not designed for a celibate life.”
“Me either,” she said, rubbing herself against him. “Why don’t you stay the rest of the night?”
He did stay until six-thirty a.m. He got home while his parents were still sleeping and fell into his own bed. As it was Sunday and he didn’t have to get up, he slept until noon.
After dinner Marshall sat on the front porch with his father while he described what had occurred at police headquarters in the middle of the night. It was obvious to both of them that the cat burglar’s capture would have to be run as a front-page story the next day. Typically, Jonas made no mention of how he thought it should be handled. That would wait until Monday morning in his office.
“What do you suppose they’ll do with the poor devil now?” Jonas asked. “Try him or salt him away in the state mental hospital?’
“I don’t see how they could try him,” his son said. “He fits the definition of legal insanity. He doesn’t know right from wrong and he certainly doesn’t realize the nature of his acts.”
“Well, he’ll probably be as well off at Gowanda as he was in front of the City Hall. He’ll find people to talk to there. This certainly isn’t going to help Betty’s case. Do you think she still has a chance?”
Marshall looked at him. “Are you beginning to suspect she’s guilty?”
It was a few moments before his father answered. Finally he said, “If she were a total stranger I’m afraid I would have to believe she was. But loyalty is as marked a trait in the Marshall family as their notorious pig-headedness. And I’ve always been particularly fond of Betty. Are you still a bit in love with her after all these years?”
“I wish it were that simple. I can’t decide whether I’m in love with her or Lydia.”
Jonas raised his eyebrows. “You do have a problem,” he said, but he offered no advice.
They lapsed into silence, Marshall brooding over what he could do to improve Betty’s situation in some way, the older man also occupied with his own thoughts. Presently Marshall stirred restlessly and rose from his chair.
“I think I’ll take a wild stab by going to see Gail Thomas,” he announced.
Jonas looked up at him. “What do you think that will accomplish?”
“Nothing, probably. But I feel impelled to do something to try to help Betty. I have a sort of cockeyed theory I intend to follow up tomorrow, but meantime I can’t just sit. I’ll see you at dinnertime.”
He was dressed in just a sport shirt and slacks, but he didn’t bother to go inside for a jacket. Summer dress in Runyon City was informal even on Sunday afternoons, and you seldom saw a suit coat before nightfall in warm weather. He desce
nded the porch steps, walked up the driveway to the double garage, swung the door upward and climbed into his car.
As he backed out of the driveway, his father called, “Will you be back in time for cocktails?”
“I wouldn’t let you die of thirst,” Marshall called back. “And I wouldn’t want you to strain your back lifting those heavy bottles yourself.”
Chapter XIX
The apartment at 126 Howard Street was only two blocks from where Lydia lived, but in a place the size of Runyon City two blocks can make a vast difference. Lydia’s neighborhood was a middle-income residential section where the only building on the street which wasn’t a residence was a church. Howard Street was dotted with second-rate taverns and small businesses. Gail Thomas lived in one of several flats above a laundry.
Marshall climbed the stairs alongside the laundry and examined name plates along the hallway until he found one reading: Gail Thomas. There was no bell, so he knocked.
“In a jiffy,” a feminine voice called.
About a minute passed before the door opened. The blonde was wearing a polka-dot Bikini with about as much material in it as in two neckties. She had a hip-length beach robe over it, but the robe was wide-open.
“You caught me — ” she started to say, then halted and stared at him. “I thought you were my date.”
“Sorry,” he said. “We’ve never met, but I suppose you know who I am. May I talk to you for a minute?”
She regarded him dubiously, then shrugged. “If it won’t be too long. One of the photographers from a New York paper is taking me to the beach to shoot some pictures. He should be along pretty quick. Come on in.”
He followed her into a small combination living room-bedroom which had a sofa-bed against one wall, at the moment serving its role as a sofa. Off to one side an open door led to a kitchenette.
“Sorry I kept you waiting, Mr. Marshall,” she said. “I was just changing into my suit and I was bare naked.”
She was still nearly naked, he thought, glancing at the slim strip of cloth across her bust, which covered little more than her nipples. The lower part of the suit was no wider, barely concealing her pubic area and dwindling to shoelace width at the sides of her hips.
He felt automatic dislike for the girl, not only because of her part in Betty’s troubles, but because of the vindictiveness she had shown Betty at the hearing. But he had to admit she was well-endowed physically. She had a slim, small-boned frame, but her bust must have measured forty inches and must have required a D-plus cup. It was the more remarkable because her breasts thrust straight out without the least suggestion of sag, despite their considerable weight.
She must have been proud of them, for she made no attempt to close her beach robe. She didn’t ask him to sit, merely standing in front of him and waiting for him to state his business.
“I’m not sure just why I’m here,” he said. “Except that I believe Mrs. Case innocent and am doing everything I can to prove it.”
She emitted an indulgent little laugh. “Naturally, you being her boy friend. I read all about you and her in some of the out-of-town papers.”
“I’ve read a lot about you, too,” he said. “But I doubt that more than half of it was true. What do you think everything you read about my relationship with Mrs. Case was?”
She stopped to think this over, then said grudgingly, “They made up a lot of stuff about me all right. But you are her boy friend, aren’t you?”
“I’m quite fond of her, but we weren’t carrying on an affair behind her husband’s back at the same time he was carrying on one with you behind hers. Up to the golf game I had with her a few hours before Bruce was shot, and which the yellow journals made so much of, I hadn’t even spoken to her in private since the day she was married. We used to meet at social affairs occasionally and say hello, but that was the extent of our intimacy.”
“This on the up-and-up?” she asked with surprise.
“Why should I lie to you?” You don’t mean anything to me.”
“Then why are you trying to get her out of this?”
“For a number of reasons. I am fond of her. We were engaged years back, before she married Bruce, and while I wasn’t what you called her ‘boy friend’ while she was married to him, maybe I am again now that he’s dead. But the main reason is that I think she’s innocent.”
“How could she be?” Gail Thomas said fiercely. “She admits she shot him, and all that evidence about the cat burglar being there was proved to be rigged. I’ll bet when they finally catch that burglar, he’ll say he was never there that night.”
Wait until she saw the next day’s papers, he thought. He said, “Why do you hate her so much? You were the other woman, not she. You moved in on her man, not vice versa.”
“Because she murdered him! She could have let him have a divorce to marry me, but if she couldn’t keep him, she didn’t want me to have him either.”
“That’s a little ridiculous,” he said. “She was not only willing to give him a divorce, it was her idea.”
“That’s what she said in court,” the blonde agreed. “But I happen to know different.”
“I suppose Bruce told you she wouldn’t let him go,” he said with a touch of indulgence. “It’s a standard dodge used by married men who cheat on their wives but don’t want to upset the status quo. Bruce earned less from his law practice than the average skilled laborer earns over at the local steel plant. He could have earned more, but he didn’t like to work. Believe me, he had no intention of giving up his luxurious life at Rexford Bay for love in a furnished flat.”
She stalked furiously over to a small writing desk against one wall and jerked open a drawer. Pulling out a string-bound package of letters, she slipped off the string, laid the stack on the desk and began thumbing through it. There seemed to be about two dozen envelopes, and she must have known them all by heart because she picked out the one she wanted by its postmark date.
Handing it to him, she said, “Read that.”
Glancing at the envelope, he saw that it was addressed by typewriter to Miss Gail Thomas at a Buffalo address. It was postmarked Runyon City and the postmark date was nearly a year old. There was no return address.
He pulled out the single typewritten sheet and unfolded it. A quick glance told him it was a love letter. Bruce Case had found one regular use for his law office anyway, he thought cynically. He had typed love letters to his mistress there.
The letter read:
Dearest: I talked to her again last night, and she still won’t give me my release so that I can marry you. I’m afraid that for the moment all we can do is wait, for I know she will make it miserable for me if I try any legal action she hasn’t agreed to. And I can’t stand a scandal. If my practice were ruined how would we live, even if we were able to marry?
I want you to know that I love you very much and will continue to try to make her see the light. Perhaps eventually she will come around.
I will be in Thursday night about the usual time and can stay until Saturday morning, as I told her I have business in Albany. If you wear that new nightgown with the transparent bosom, I’ll give you concrete evidence of how much I love you.
It was signed simply, ‘Your lover,’ and even that was typed.
Handing the letter and envelope back to the girl, Marshall asked, “What’s that supposed to prove?”
“That he’d been trying to get her to agree to a divorce as long as a year ago. I’m not saying he told her about being in love with me. He didn’t tell her he wanted a divorce because of another woman, because he knew she’d raise hell with me if she found out, maybe even drag me into court for alienation of affections. He just told her that since they couldn’t get along, he wanted out. She didn’t know about me until just before she killed him. But she did know he wanted a divorce.”
“You’re a very gullible young girl,” Marshall said. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-two. What’s that got to do with anything?”<
br />
“So you were twenty when you met this married man, or at least when you became his mistress, and he was thirty-four. It’s easy for any man to make promises. But don’t you see how careful he was? The letter, even the signature, is typed so that no one could identify his handwriting. He doesn’t mention his wife by name and identifies himself merely as ‘Your lover.’ He doesn’t even call you by name, only by an endearment. There’s no return address on the envelope. He was making very sure that if you got too impatient about the marriage he was promising you, you couldn’t make any trouble. You couldn’t prove in a million years that those love letters came from Bruce Case. I wouldn’t be surprised if he even used a rented typewriter instead of one that could be traced to him.”
“That was just because he was a lawyer,” she said. “It wasn’t because he was handing me a line, or thought I would be a problem even if he was. He knew I wouldn’t do anything to hurt him even if I found out he was a rat. But he wasn’t. He wanted a divorce and she wouldn’t let him go. Then when she saw me, she knew she couldn’t possibly hold him any more, so she killed him.”
He looked at her curiously. “You mean she realized she was no competition for you?”
She arched her back, thrusting out her remarkable bosom. “Do you think she was? Why, she must be past thirty.”
“Just thirty,” he said, amused. “But at the risk of hurting your feelings, I’d rather have her for a wife than you. The relative attractiveness of women depends on a little more than age difference and bust measurement.”
“Can you see anywhere else she has me beat?” she demanded, slipping off her beach jacket and tossing it onto the sofa-bed.
Pulling in her already flat stomach, she marched past him with a beauty-contest walk, her hands, palms down, slightly out from her sides. She turned slowly to give him a rear view, then walked over to the sofa and put the beach robe back on.
He had to concede that she had a beautiful body. Her hips were softly rounded, neither too plump nor too slim; her legs were long and perfectly tapered; her skin was a creamy white and without a blemish to mar its perfection.
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