The Swimming Pool

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  “I had a vague idea that I was in charge of this case. If New York Homicide is taking over, I’d like to know. Now I’m getting the hell out of here. Maybe O’Brien can produce this masked phantom, if there ever was one. This whole business looks to me like a conspiracy to protect Mrs. Chandler. But don’t think I’m through. I’m only beginning.”

  He stalked out of the room, not without a certain dignity, and a moment later I heard his car starting. The detective he had brought heard it, too. He shrugged.

  “So he leaves me here,” he said. “Looks like I’ll have to bum a ride into town. But don’t discount Fowler. He’s got plenty on the ball.”

  That he had something was evident when he came to The Birches that night.

  O’Brien had disappeared when the others did. He left an envelope for me with the clerk in the office at the hospital, but there was no letter inside. There was merely a prescription blank, on which he had written just three words. They were enough, however, to make me happy, and me early part of the evening was very pleasant.

  After all, there was no real case against Judith, as Phil agreed with his lawyer’s mind when I told him about it.

  “Unless they can prove she had a gun,” he said. “And that I doubt. It’s up to the gun and the jewel case. Prove one and locate the other. Then maybe you’ve got a case. Or maybe you haven’t.”

  We had another reason for feeling somewhat cheerful that evening. A real-estate agent in New York had called Phil up, and said he had a faint nibble for The Birches.

  “Not too strong,” he said “but they can pay plenty if they take it. Scared of the atom bomb, I gather, and have a raft of children. Only,” he added “don’t have any more murders out there. You’d be surprised how a whacking good one affects the real-estate market.”

  It shook me, rather. So much of my life was tied up in the place. In the spring the magnolias, pink dogwoods, and cherry and other fruit blossoms made it look almost bridal. And the silver birches were there the year round, lovely in the snow, tall and dignified always. Father’s garden, the pet cemetery, the stall in the stable where Fairy, my little pony, was kept—

  “Oh, no,” I said when Phil told me. “How can we?”

  “How can’t we?” he retorted. “I have an idea you won’t be here long anyhow, and I’m not staying on alone.”

  As it happened, Bill had brought his Janey to dinner, and Helga had extended herself—and the grocery bill—to give her what she called a bang-up dinner. Janey was a nice slim little thing. Bill must have known dozens exactly like her, with their girlish voices and rather shy good manners. And she did have a last name, after all. Not too surprisingly it was Jones. Just why Bill found her unusual I couldn’t see, and Phil’s only comment was that she ate enough for a laboring man, that when she stood up you would have thought a hard-boiled egg would show, and she didn’t even bulge.

  He watched them as they wandered out to the porch.

  “Funny kids these days,” he said. “Those two are as romantic as a pair of china doorknobs. Ever occur to you that we’ve knocked romance for a loop by taking the clothes off the youngsters and bringing sex out into the open?”

  But I was in no mood to argue, so he let it drop. I was tired, and I had not liked the way Judith looked when Fowler spoke about the woman in the pool. I did my best, turned on the radio, so Bill and Janey could dance in the hall, and was about to go up to bed when I heard a car stop in the drive.

  It was Fowler, and he had brought Ridge Chandler with him. Both men looked sober, and Fowler asked to see us both alone. I knew then there was trouble, bad trouble. And there was.

  Chapter 32

  WE TOOK THEM INTO the library, and against Bill’s despairing glance firmly closed the door.

  “What’s all this about?” Phil asked gruffly. “Judith’s told you all she knows, hasn’t she?”

  Ridge gave his usual glance at Mother’s portrait before he sat down. Fowler remained standing.

  “I’ve been checking back a bit, Mr. Maynard,” he said. “I don’t like to bring up anything unpleasant, but after this length of time—You remember your father’s death, of course.”

  “I do. Did you expect me to say I’d forgotten it?”

  “You went to his office that night, I believe? After it happened?”

  “I did. Is that any business of yours?”

  “I think it is. You saw the gun he used.”

  “It was there, yes.”

  “Do you know what happened to it later? I mean, what became of it?”

  “Good God, no,” Phil said violently. “I never wanted to see the thing again.” He pulled himself together. “Sorry, Fowler,” he said, more quietly. “It was all an unholy mess. I had to help go over his papers. We were wiped out, of course, and my mother was in poor shape. We had to get rid of the town house, too. There was a lot of confusion.”

  “That’s why I brought Mr. Chandler,” the chief said smoothly. “He was attentive to your sister Judith at that time, so he was there a good bit. All right, Chandler, let’s have it.”

  Ridge looked uncomfortable.

  “I don’t like being dragged into this, Phil,” he said, “especially since Judith is involved. But the fact is the police returned the gun to your mother. I was there when it came.”

  “What’s all this about?” Phil demanded. “What has Father’s gun to do with any of us? You’re talking about twenty years ago, man.”

  “I’m talking about me past few days,” Fowler said importantly. “As your sister here already knows, the gun which killed Shannon, Mr. Maynard, was your father’s gun. I have the serial numbers. It was registered in the city in his name. He bought it when we had some burglaries out here in this district years ago.”

  Phil looked dumbfounded.

  “Father’s? You’re sure of that?”

  “I’ve seen his gun purchase permit, Mr. Maynard. Here’s the description of the gun.” He took a paper from his wallet. “Thirty-eight Police Positive Colt, blue finish, four-inch barrel, weight twenty-two ounces. It’s the same gun your sister dropped at the stable. No doubt about it.”

  “Are you telling me,” Phil said hoarsely, “that my sister had my father’s gun, and killed Shannon with it? Why, for God’s sweet sake?”

  “I think you’ll find she had a reason,” Fowler said smoothly. “Anyhow it’s the gun which killed him. That’s one thing O’Brien couldn’t stop. I sent it and the bullet to Ballistics in the city. They match all right. Got the report tonight.”

  Ridge had been quiet. It was obvious he disliked being there, disliked Fowler, disliked Phil and myself, probably disliked even the kids in the hall. Now he spoke.

  “I suppose Lois has told you about today,” he said, “but I don’t think it will ever come to trial. She can be certified if necessary as of unsound mind.”

  “She’s as sane as I am.”

  Ridge shrugged his elegantly padded shoulders.

  “I am willing to testify to the contrary,” he said stiffly. “Judith has not been herself for a long time. The attempt at suicide shows it clearly. She had everything to live for—health, adequate means, and a considerable remnant of her former beauty. When she wanted a divorce—for no reason whatever—I saw she got it.”

  He glanced again at Mother’s painting over the mantel and smiled faintly.

  “I not only gave her everything she wanted after our marriage, I helped her out of trouble before it. Lois knows it. I told her some time ago. But after hearing Mr. Fowler’s account of today at the hospital, I feel I should make my own position clear.”

  He looked at Phil, but he was lighting a cigarette.

  “What is your position, Ridge?” Phil asked. “You’re not married to Judith now. You’re not even a member of this family. Just why are you here?”

  Ridge flushed.

  “I might say I came to ask for the fifty thousand dollars I gave your mother twenty years ago after your father’s death. It might just possibly interest you. I don’t
know.”

  Phil looked stupefied.

  “Mother?” he said. “Why did she need it? It never showed on any of the bank statements.”

  “I paid it in cash. She wanted it that way, in small bills if possible. Even in those days of Prohibition it wasn’t easy. I rather think my bank thought I was bootlegging.”

  If it was meant as a pleasantry it got nowhere.

  “Just why did she want it?” Phil asked grimly. “She wasn’t being blackmailed, was she?”

  “I’m quite sure she was. At the time I thought I was paying to keep my future wife’s name out of the newspapers. She had been out driving with some lad or other, and the car had hit a woman. It hadn’t killed her, but she was badly hurt, and this was to remunerate her. That was the story I was told.

  “It wasn’t true, of course. I know it now. But I was very much in love, and so—”

  He shrugged again.

  “What I was actually doing was to bribe the butler you had at the time—a man named Dawson—to keep his mouth shut about the fact that Judith had been—let’s say indiscreet—with a boy named Shannon. She had spent most of a night in his room, and she was his only alibi for a murder he was supposed to have committed while she was with him.

  “I suppose Dawson had let her out of the house, and let her in again. He may have followed her, too. I don’t know. But as a result this boy, Johnny Shannon, was convicted and served twenty years to life in the pen. I don’t need to tell you it was this same Shannon she shot and killed two weeks ago with your father’s gun.”

  Nobody spoke for a moment. Phil looked profoundly shocked. Out in the hall Bill and Janey were shooting craps. We could hear the dice rattling on the bare floor. Then Phil moved.

  “Why would she do such a thing?” he said. “If Shannon had shot her, I could understand it. But you say she killed him. Why?”

  “You’ll have to ask her,” Ridge said. “I suppose she was afraid of him, for one thing. But if all this comes out, as it may, she can claim he threatened her. She shot in self-defense.”

  Fowler got up.

  “I think I’d better say what I came to say,” he said, “and then get out. As you know, I’ve been holding Mrs. Chandler as a material witness, but this matter of the gun changes things. As a matter of fact, I have a warrant for her arrest in my pocket. She can’t be moved yet, of course, and if she can prove self-defense it won’t go hard with her. Or put it another way. Say she’s been erratic at times. Has a psychiatrist, hasn’t she? And the maid here, Jennie, says she’s kept herself locked in ever since she came. There’s a defense, too—mental case.”

  He said something about not liking scandal when it touched the old and prominent families who had summer homes there. Secretly, however, I thought he was enormously pleased with himself as he went out. Bill and Janey were still noisily shooting craps. Both sprawled on the floor, as though there was no warrant in Fowler’s pocket; as though Judith had not taken Father’s automatic from the trunk in the attic which held his fishing-rods and old hunting-gear; and as though Ridgely Chandler had not tonight paid her back for the years she had not loved him.

  Phil and Fowler were already on the porch when Ridge tried to put an arm around me as he said good night. I freed myself quickly. “I hope you’re happy,” I said. “That story was unnecessary and uncalled for, Ridge. The gun was enough. The rest was pure spite, because she hated you. You couldn’t forgive that, could you?”

  He gave me a cold smile.

  “No,” he said. “You learn fast, don’t you?”

  Then he was gone, and Phil and I were left to our own unhappy thoughts. Sometime later, after making cocoa for the kids, I found him in the library carefully inspecting the Laszlo portrait. He turned when he heard me.

  “She must have had some dreadful times,” he said slowly. “Times when she couldn’t sleep for seeing an innocent boy shut away for the rest of his life. All of it so Judith could marry Chandler, the pipsqueak of a man who was here tonight.” And then he said something I shall always remember.

  “Maybe we are better now than we were then,” he said. “There’s not so much pride of the wrong sort, of money or place, or social position. Mother was of her world, but her world has gone kaput. I’m glad you’re marrying O’Brien, Lois. He’s a cop, but he’s also a gent.”

  It was the next day that Judith told me about the woman in the pool.

  She was looking better. The nurse had brushed her hair, and piled it high on her head. But I felt her real beauty was gone for good. There comes a time in every woman’s life, I suppose, when she has to say farewell to the best things nature has done for her; the flawless skin goes, the lovely eyes fade, and she knows she is over the hill and, as the Indians say, going to the sun.

  Evidently she had not yet been arrested. Fowler had not served his warrant. But now there were two men in the hall outside her door, one in uniform and one in plain clothes. They greeted me civilly enough, but there was a subtle change in both of them, a watchfulness, an alertness I had not noticed before.

  Judith was alone when I went in. She seemed glad to see me. She had never been a reader, and the long hours must have hung heavy on her hands. But the look she gave me was a wary one.

  “What was all that about yesterday?” she asked. “Didn’t they believe me?”

  “I think they hoped you would remember more, Jude.”

  “I don’t. I can’t.” She passed a hand wearily over her tired face. “But I must talk to somebody or I’ll go mad. Lois, what do you remember about Mother? Before she moved out to The Birches? You were pretty small, weren’t you?”

  “I was seven, almost eight, when Father died.”

  She was watching me carefully.

  “Was there anything queer about Father’s death?” she asked.

  I was startled.

  “Not so far as I know. There has never been any doubt he killed himself.”

  “I suppose he did,” she said, and was thoughtful for a minute. Then: “I didn’t shoot that man, Lois. Believe me, what I told was true. But I think I did something else equally dreadful. I think I killed the Benjamin woman.” I must have looked horrified, for she went on gravely. “I tried to save her, as God is my witness, but I never was a good swimmer and she kept going down.” She shuddered. “I had to tell you,” she said. “I can’t take any more. Is that policeman still out there?”

  “He can’t hear you. What do you mean, you tried to save her?”

  “She was in the pool when I got there. Somebody meant to kill her. You see how it is. I’m under suspicion for what I did not do, and in a way I am guilty of something they don’t even suspect! I suppose that’s life for you, or maybe death.”

  It was a longish story she told me that day, her poor face raddled and her hands shaking. It began, she said, after she came back to The Birches from Reno. She didn’t get much mail, but one day Jennie brought her a letter from the mailbox. It warned her she was in danger as Shannon was free. But that was all, and she knew about Shannon already. Nevertheless, the letter scared her, she said, but she did nothing about it until another one came. But by that time she was pretty desperate. The new one was rather ominous. It was signed Kate Henry, and it said Shannon was trying to get his case reopened.

  “I’m through with it,” it went on. “Dawson’s dead. He killed Mollie Preston, and if I go on the stand I’ll tell them so. But Johnny’s counting on you to alibi him. I think we’d better talk this over.”

  She ended by saying she would be at the pool on a certain night, and Judith was to meet her there. Judith was terrified. She was afraid Johnny would be there, too. She went, however. In the hall she picked up one of Phil’s golf clubs, for defense if necessary. It was all she had. She never owned a gun. I knew that, didn’t I?

  “You were looking for something in the attic one night, Jude. They think you found the gun there.”

  She shook her head.

  “No. I had hidden a letter from Johnny in your old doll’s house
, Lois. It was under one of the floor mats. But it was gone. Perhaps Mother found it, or Helga.”

  It was, she said, one he had sent her after his arrest, begging her to tell the truth and save him. It had almost killed her. She was in love with him, and perhaps someday she could produce it. But by that time it was too late. Dawson had been bought off, Flaherty was dead, and Mother took her to Arizona.

  “What do you mean by someday, Jude?”

  “I thought he would be acquitted. If he wasn’t—”

  But Mother had all those months in Arizona to work on her. Mother and Ridge. She was pretty young, she said, so when Ridge proposed to her—knowing the truth, as he did—she shifted the burden to him.

  “Only he never did anything,” she said bitterly. “He didn’t even try to get Johnny out. At first I thought he was afraid of his mother. She was a terrible woman, Lois. But she died and still he refused to help Johnny. I gave up then.”

  She went back to the pool. She said the bench was empty when she got there, so she waited the golf club beside her.

  “It was dark, but there was some starlight,” she said. “I sat down and waited, but the woman didn’t come.” Then she heard someone in the shrubbery. Whoever it was didn’t appear, and suddenly she was terrified.

  “I forgot all about the golf club,” she said. “I simply beat it. I ran back to the house and sat on the porch, and before long I heard Ed Brown’s taxi. It stopped to let someone out and went away, and after a while I screwed up my courage and went down to the pool again.

  “She was there, Lois, but she wasn’t on the bench. She was in the pool, floundering around in the deep end. I tried to reach her. I got down on my knees and tried to catch that awful hair of hers, but I couldn’t hold her. I suppose I should have gone in after her, but I’m a rotten swimmer. Anyhow it was too late. She sank right before my eyes, and she never came up again.”

  She said she waited for a while. Quite literally she could not walk. The woman’s hat came up and floated, then it sank, too, and after a bit she picked up the golf club and went back to the house. It never occurred to her the golf club had been the murder weapon. She simply put it back in the bag and forgot about it. But she had been almost frantic, anyhow. For one thing, she had got pretty wet, and she had spent most of the night drying and pressing her clothes.