Shadow of Guilt

by Patrick Quentin

  She threw out a hand. “So there it is. Ala—you—Don Saxby. I made a fool of myself all along the line, but once you get kicked out of a fool’s paradise, at least it’s a comfort to understand why you had the kick coming to you.”

  Listening to her had been terrible for me, not for what she’d done, not for her pathetically justified blossoming under Don Saxby’s attentions, but for the light it shed on me. In her merciless self-accusation, she hadn’t accused me. There had never been a moment when she’d even hinted that any inadequacy had been mine. But I stood accused, and as I looked through her eyes back into the years of our marriage, back long before Eve, the realization of my own hypocrisy blazed out at me like a building suddenly illuminated by floodlights.

  There I’d been, smugly committed to my own self-elected conception of what marriage to Consuelo Corliss had involved: the humiliation of being the husband of a rich woman (had Connie ever by word or deed showed she’d thought of me that way?); the strain of being the “average-guy” husband of an icily efficient, universally admired social figure (had Connie ever vaunted her own position?); and then, most self-deluding of all, the conviction that I was a red-blooded male stuck with a frigid female. Poor George Hadley. That’s what I’d chosen to think: that the marriage was too tough for me, never that I had been too feeble for the marriage. Poor George Hadley, no warmth at home for him. Ala’s phrase again. No warmth!

  It was fine. I liked it fine, but always around quarter to five or five I’d think: George will be coming home soon…

  She was still sitting on the arm of the chair, still smiling at me with her bright, almost impersonal smile, making no demands whatsoever. She would, I knew, rather die than make me feel she had been implying there were any seeds for reconciliation in what she’d revealed. She knew as well as I that it was far too late for us to pick up the pieces now. We might have, if this had happened before Eve, but this sort of thing never happened “before” anything. That was one of life’s axioms.

  And that was what made the situation unbearable now. I knew my love was completely committed to Eve and I knew, although now there was no smugness in it, that indeed it was Eve’s league where I belonged and not Connie’s. There was nothing left to face my wife with but offerings which she would never accept—pity, regret and, of course, my own awareness of my total failure as a husband.

  For a moment—it seemed like a moment of infinite duration—we just stayed there, Connie on the arm of the chair, me standing in front of the books.

  It was Connie who said, “Isn’t this board-meeting day?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “You’re terribly late, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” I said, “but Lew knows we’re having our time of troubles.”

  She got up. “George, about the bracelet. You got it at Cartier’s, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “What if Lieutenant Trant is able to trace who bought it?” It was indicative of how far we had got from the pressure of the moment that, until she’d said that, I’d given up thinking of Lieutenant Trant. I’d hardly thought of Don Saxby either except as a thing which had happened to Connie and me—certainly not as a corpse.

  She was looking at me, her face very calm but very solemn. “If he does identify it, if he finds out it’s mine…”

  No, I thought. After all that had happened, they—whoever they were, the fates?—couldn’t do this to us.

  “Won’t he think I killed him, George?”

  She said that without emotion as if she were merely bringing up a fact to be considered.

  The confusions in me steadied themselves. “But he can’t. At least we can be sure of that. You have an alibi. He knows that. Miss Taylor.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Of course, Miss Taylor.” She gave a little smile. “So that’s one thing we don’t have to worry about, isn’t it? And we won’t have to worry about you either because I’ll call her right away. She’ll say you came home before three-thirty. I know she will. She’ll do anything for me.”

  “All right,” I said. “Try her.” There didn’t seem to be anything more to say. I looked at my watch. “I’d better get down to the office. Lew wanted to see me this morning.”

  “That’s something else,” she said, and her voice was almost its old, brisk Connie voice. “The first chance you get, do tell Mrs. Lord that I know and understand. Poor dear, life must have been awful for her all these last months. The least we can do is to relieve her mind a little.”

  “Connie,” I said, and my voice cracked. I’d opened my mouth to speak and suddenly there was this thick, painful constriction in my throat. “Connie, I…”

  “You really should hurry, dear,” she said. “You know how peevish Lew gets when he’s kept waiting…”

  NINETEEN

  I went to Consolidated. Connie called to say that Miss Taylor had left for South Carolina early that morning because her mother had suddenly been taken sick.

  “It’s maddening, George. But it’ll be all right, I’m sure. I’ll call her father and leave a message for her to get in touch with me the moment she arrives. Oh, and there’s something else, too. Vivien’s just heard about Chuck and she’s wild with enthusiasm. She insists on giving a family celebration party tonight. I’ll have to go, of course. But—well, with the board meeting and everything I’m sure you won’t have a proper chance to talk to Mrs. Lord at the office and I really think—I mean, for her sake—that you should let her know it’s all right. So I told Vivien not to count on you. I said you were working late. Wasn’t that the best thing?”

  As I listened I wondered whether there was anyone in the world except Connie who would be behaving like this—arranging my alibi for me, staffing Vivien, thinking about Eve under circumstances which would have turned any other wife into a vengeful fury. Once again I felt the same old mixture of emotions: admiration, gratitude and a faint, very faint resentment that she should still be organizing me.

  “Thanks, Connie. Thanks a lot.”

  Bob Driscoll came for me then, and for the rest of the day I was tied up. The meeting wasn’t over until five and I hurried back to my office. It was the first time I’d had a chance to see Eve alone all day. When I told her about Connie, her reaction was far less complicated than mine.

  “She really gave us her blessing?”

  “Not only that. She figured we’d want to be alone for a while so she got me out of going to Vivien’s party.”

  “And all these months…! George, she is wonderful, isn’t she? How am I ever going to let her know how grateful I am?”

  That was when Vivien swirled into the office. For a moment she dazzled me. There was always so much going on with Vivien—furs gleaming, jewels and teeth sparkling, the tinkling laugh, the pretty “starlet” way which apparently hadn’t made the grade in Hollywood but had certainly been richly rewarded in her role as Mrs. Malcolm Ryson.

  “George, darling! Hello, Mrs. Lord.” She ran to me and enveloped me in mink. “What’s all this about working late? Today of all days? Are you out of your mind? I’m just through having my hair done right around the comer and I said to myself: This is ridiculous. I’ll just plunge into that office and drag George off by the scruff of his neck—whatever that is.”

  She swooped around to Eve. “You see, don’t you, Mrs. Lord? The nightmare’s all over. Chuck’s free again. He worships Ala. Ala worships him. How could she ever have wavered, etcetera? It’s all exactly as if nothing had happened, as if they’d turned back all the clocks. Tell him, Mrs. Lord, tell this dreary man he’s simply got to come and celebrate with the others. All the family together.”

  I looked at Eve. She looked at me. I knew we were both feeling the same way. Whatever had happened to her own marriage, Connie had finally succeeded in getting Chuck and Ala together. One small way of repaying her was for me to see that the whole family was united at the moment of the celebration.

  “All right,” I said. “I’ll call you later at home, Mrs. Lord. If there’
s any time, we still might get through some of the reports.”

  “There!” said Vivien. “I knew it. I knew no one could be as monstrous as all that. Well, darling, off we go. I have the car outside.” She grabbed both my hands and then, just as she was going to whisk me away, she gave a little cluck. “Really, what happens at board meetings? You look as wilted as last week’s lettuce. You can’t blight my celebration like this. We’ll stop off at your house on the way and you can change into your most glamorous wedding garment. Good-bye, Mrs. Lord. Good-bye, good-bye.”

  Bombarding me with an unbroken barrage of chatter, Vivien drove me to Sixty-Fourth Street. We were actually getting out of the car before I saw Lieutenant Trant. He appeared from nowhere, it seemed, hovering at my side like a chauffeur ready to assist the descent of an elderly employer.

  “Hello, Mr. Hadley. Good evening, Mrs. Ryson.” He moved his grave smile from one to the other of us. “This is a piece of luck for me, Mr. Hadley. I’ve just been told by the maid that no one was at home.”

  “They’re over at our house, Lieutenant,” said Vivien. “We’re giving a party. A celebration—after Chuck’s terrible ordeal.”

  She was smiling her standard woman-to-man smile at Trant, snuggling around inside her mink. She seemed completely to have forgotten her own “terrible” ordeal when she’d ratted on Chuck. I wished I were able to forget so easily.

  I said, “Did you want anything in particular, Lieutenant?”

  “As a matter of fact, Mr. Hadley, I want to speak to you.”

  I turned to Vivien. “You go on,” I said. “I’ll come by in a minute.”

  “All right, darling.” Vivien smiled at Trant again. “But don’t keep him too long. Please, Lieutenant, promise me. We need him.”

  She waggled her hand at him, kissed me on the cheek and drove off. For a moment Trant stood looking after her, then he turned to me. I preceded him up the steps, opened the front door, and led him into the library.

  I should by then have become used to the oppressiveness he always inspired in me, the sensation that ever since I’d first met him he had been biding his time, crouching like the most patient of tigers for a sudden, eventual pounce. But now, although his smile was as unintimidating as ever and he had in so many words that morning dismissed us completely from the case, I felt tenser than I’d ever felt before with him!

  I said, “How about a drink?”

  I went over to the bar and was actually pouring myself a shot of bourbon before he said, “No, thank you. I don’t think so. Not now.”

  I put water in my drink. “You don’t mind if I do?”

  “Of course not. You probably need one.”

  He took out his cigarette case and, selecting a cigarette, inevitably tapped it on the case and fit it.

  “Cartier’s,” he said, “is a very impressive store, Mr. Hadley. I’d tried a couple of other jewelers first, but less than five minutes after I’d shown them that pearl bracelet at Cartier’s, they were able to identify it as a bracelet you had them make for your wife seven years ago.”

  The nightmare's over! Vivien and her celebration! My hand was gripping my glass so tightly that with a hallucinatory sensation I could almost feel it crushing, driving splinters into my palm.

  “I can’t say I was very surprised.” The Lieutenant’s continuing voice sounded very slightly muffled as if it were coming to me through a thin barrier of paper. “There’d already been several hints. The woman who heard the shots had seen him on several occasions come into the building with a woman. She didn’t know who the woman was, of course, but the general description could very well have fitted Mrs. Hadley. And then—well, the Duvreux story established a sort of pattern, didn’t it? Begin as a protégé of the wife-switch to the daughter. Of course, Chuck confused the issue for a while, but he never sidetracked me too much. I mean, from the moment the motel owners checked in and Mrs. Fostwick called from Toronto, I had a fairly good idea who killed Don Saxby. And now, since I’ve found out about the bracelet, I would say I have a very good idea.”

  He paused, but his eyes never left my face. I was looking back at him stupidly, I imagine, or however a rabbit is supposed to look back at a snake.

  “Usually, Mr. Hadley, once you’ve found the best motive you’ve found the murderer. A man who discovers that both his wife and his daughter have been—what shall we say—betrayed?—by the same man, has a very good motive for murder, doesn’t he?”

  Somehow, I suppose, in the even flow of his words, I had gathered what he was leading up to; I had realized that after the long crouch the pounce had come. But that it should have come in just this way was so staggeringly unexpected that

  I felt nothing at first but astonishment merged with something that was almost amusement.

  “You’re not accusing me?” I said.

  “Accusing you, Mr. Hadley? No, I’m not accusing you. I’m only asking you what you would say if I did accuse you.”

  “I’d say it was ridiculous.”

  “Ridiculous that you would have wanted to kill a man who’d done what Saxby did to your wife and daughter?”

  “No, not exactly, but—”

  “But—what?”

  They can’t do anything to you if you’re innocent. How many times had I been uttering that trite reassurance in the last few days? But gradually I could feel it all as an octopus again; I could feel tentacles creeping from the right, the left, from behind.

  “Well, Mr. Hadley? You admit you had the motive. What about the opportunity? Wouldn’t you say in your own defense that you couldn’t have killed him because you had an alibi?”

  I’d been waiting for that, waiting with the image of Miss Taylor hovering ominously in my mind. I knew as clearly as I knew anything that a lifeline thrown by Lieutenant Trant would be suspect but I grabbed it.

  “Yes,” I said. “I imagine I’d remind you that I had an alibi.”

  Trant turned away from me with maddening leisureliness. He saw an ash tray on Connie’s desk and crushed his cigarette in it.

  “We called Miss Taylor, Mr. Hadley. This morning when I borrowed your phone I told headquarters to get in touch with her. They got the South Carolina number. We talked to her the moment she arrived. She confirmed Mrs. Hadley’s and Miss Hadley’s alibis, of course. But when it came to you, her story was a little different from yours or your wife’s. She said that, to the best of her knowledge, when she left at four-thirty, you still hadn’t come home.”

  So much for Connie’s “arrangements.” I might have known that in any contest of wits between Connie and Trant, Trant would certainly win. He had paused again, giving time for this body blow to make its effect.

  Then he went on, “I’m sure that you’ve been planning to get in touch with her and ask her to include you in the alibi. For all I know, you’ve already done so. But I’m afraid I got ahead of you. And I spoke to her from the office. I have the conversation on tape. As the D. A. sees it and as I see it, Mr. Hadley, the only people, apart from yourself, who at the moment have any known immediate motive for murdering Don Saxby, were Mrs. Hadley or Miss Hadley. Miss Taylor has been able to give them both a definite alibi. But you…” He made a little gesture with his hand.

  “Motive, Mr. Hadley, opportunity… and an alibi which didn’t happen to hold up very well, did it? That’s what I want you to think about. I know it’s unorthodox for a cop to show his hand, but I’ve never cared much for being orthodox. And in a case like this where the murdered man, morally if not legally, deserved what was coming to him ... I feel, well, shall we say that I feel holding out on you any longer wouldn’t be cricket?”

  Once again, at the least imaginable moment, he was stretching out his hand, smiling his exasperating smile of tolerance for all human frailty.

  “Don’t bother to see me out. I know the way. But there’s one last thing I’d like to say. Even in cricket, I believe, the object of the game is to win. I have no actual proof yet. I’ll even be frank enough to tell you that. But now is o
nly now. Good evening, Mr. Hadley. I won’t keep you from Mrs. Ryson’s celebration any longer.”

  He went out of the library. I heard his footsteps going down the hall. Then the front door opened and closed.

  I stood there with my drink half drunk in my hand. The imaginary tentacles were crawling, curling around me because I saw the decision I’d have to make. It was the same soul-destroying decision that had confronted me last night, only now it was I who had been put into the position vacated by Chuck. For, in spite of Trant’s threats, I knew there need be no danger for me at all. All I had to do was to admit I’d gone to Saxby’s and found Ala there. Once Trant knew Ala’s alibi was a fake too and that I’d actually discovered her there by the body, he would, without any shadow of doubt, forget about me. His terrible round game of “pick the murderer” would come to a remorseless close with Ala.

  But knowing what I had to decide didn’t make the decision any easier. Ironically, this was supposed to be the first day of my freedom from the Corlisses; the first day of my real fife with Eve. What would happen to Tobago if I didn’t tell? But if I did tell, how would Eve and I ever be able to five with ourselves.

  I took a gulp of my drink, feeling at the lowest ebb of exhaustion. There was no proof against me. Trant had admitted it. And he would never be able to get any because I wasn’t guilty. Didn’t the answer fie there? Wouldn’t Eve have to agree that there was only one thing to do? Once it had seemed possible for me to sacrifice Ala if need be, but now, after she’d so splendidly shown her courage, now at the very moment when she was being reunited with Chuck, it was something, I knew, which just couldn’t be done.