The Irrepressible Peccadillo

by Fletcher Flora

  “It wasn’t necessary to give her a cent,” Wilson said. “There wasn’t a thing she could have done that wouldn’t have been more unpleasant for her than for us.”

  “Is that your opinion?” Thelma Thatcher said. “I’m sure it is, for I’ve heard it at least a hundred times before. And I’ve explained patiently at least as many times that I am naturally reluctant to be known publicly as an extra-legal concubine to a bigamist, and it would have been very little consolation or comfort merely to have a treacherous little bitch suffering her own consequences in her own way at the same time. I preferred to pay the money, and I did. At least five thousand dollars of it. I happened to have that much in the house for a particular reason that is not relevant, and I gave it to her with the promise that I would give her the rest that night. In return, she promised that she would go away the very next day and get a real divorce quietly as soon as possible, and odd as it may seem under the circumstances, I somehow believed her. She left then, and I went to the bank and got the fifteen thousand from my personal account. It may seem like a lot of money to give someone, especially with no guarantee that she wouldn’t be back for more, but I didn’t believe that she would. Anyhow, twenty thousand dollars isn’t really very much money to Wilson and me, however much it may be to some people. I’m sure that Wilson could have found some way to deduct most of it from his income tax as some kind of allowable expenditure. He’s very clever at such things.”

  “I don’t think we’d better talk too much about that,” Wilson said.

  “What I want to know,” Sid said, “is if she came back for the rest of the money.”

  “No, she didn’t. I told her to come around nine, for I knew Wilson had a business meeting and wouldn’t be home at that time. I had the money, and I waited for her, but she didn’t come, and now, of course, it is apparent why she didn’t.”

  “Is it?” Sid said. “Why didn’t she?”

  “Because she was murdered and couldn’t.”

  “It may be apparent to you, but it isn’t to me. I confess, in fact, that I am more than a little puzzled. She called Gid at nine-thirty, which was half an hour after she was supposed to have come here for the money, and I would like to know why the hell she was fooling around making a date with my husband and neglecting business in hand that was a lot more urgent and important.”

  “I know nothing about that, but I do know that I’ve told the truth about my part in what happened here between me and her. Anything that Wilson said may be discounted as nonsense.”

  “Well,” Wilson said, “after she was lolled and you told me about her being here, and for what reason, I admit I thought you might have lolled her yourself, and it was my duty as a husband to protect you at my own expense, if possible.”

  He looked forlorn and sounded pathetic, as if he expected to be commended instead of criticized, but Sid and Thelma Thatcher, who were incompatible relative to everything else, were agreed at least on the position that far too much idiocy had been excused on the grounds of good intentions, and their mutual attitude was primarily critical.

  “Darling,” Thelma Thatcher said, “it was just too manly of you.”

  “And why,” Sid said, “are you now so sure that what you originally thought wasn’t perfectly correct?”

  “As to that,” Thelma Thatcher said, “it is probable that the murderer has already been found.”

  “If I were in your place,” Sid said, “I’m sure I would find it comforting to think so. I’d still like to know, however, why someone with fifteen thousand dollars waiting for her did not even take the trouble to pick it up before getting involved with someone else’s husband, and incidentally with a murderer. In fact, I would like to know just where she went and what she did between the time she left Gid in the Kiowa Room and the time she went wherever she was killed and met whoever killed her.”

  “Personally,” Thelma Thatcher said, “I have no interest in that at all. If you want to know, why don’t you go somewhere else and ask someone who might be able to tell you?”

  “I intend to,” Sid said. “Thank you for helping me, however reluctantly.”

  “Not at all. I only hope that you will keep your part of the agreement and not expose us to public humiliation for an unfortunate mistake that was in no way our fault, except to the extent, perhaps, that Wilson was at fault in being incredibly gullible from first to last.”

  “Was there an agreement? I don’t recall any. To tell the truth, I am no more concerned about your difficulty, or the humiliation you may suffer as a consequence, than you are about getting Gid out of jail. It’s largely a matter of one’s interests, isn’t it? However, I won’t tell anyone about you immediately, or ever if it isn’t necessary for Gid’s sake. If it is, I’ll tell whatever I know wherever it will do the most good.”

  She turned and walked out into the hall, Wilson loping after her to the door and holding it for her as she left.

  “Every word Thelma told you is perfectly true,” Wilson said. “I assure you it is.”

  “For the sake of your privacy,” Sid said, “let us hope so.”

  Driving downtown, she reviewed events as Thelma Thatcher had related them, and although she had perversely refused to admit it to the Thatchers, she was convinced, in fact, that every word of the version was true.

  She was convinced of this simply because it so perfectly accorded with her own preconceived notions of what had probably happened, which she had expressed, indeed, to Cotton McBride himself on the afternoon of Saturday last.

  When she got downtown, she parked in the lot beside the Hotel Carson and went into the lobby. The clerk at the desk was young and overflowing with ideas and the juices of glands, both of which were stimulated by Sid, who was an adequate stimulant at all times and an expert one when she gave it her full attention. She was compelled to do so in this instance because the clerk, although susceptible, was reluctant to give out information about a guest, even a dead one, that might be considered confidential, especially to a woman, however stimulating, who happened to be the wife of the man who was suspected of having made the guest dead. Finally, though, with hope high and hormones flowing, he confided that Beth Thatcher had checked her key at the desk late in the afternoon before the night she was killed, and that she had not picked it up again, and therefore could be assumed never to have returned to her room. Wherever she had gone, whatever to do, she had apparently gone directly from the Kiowa Room after drinking gimlets with Gideon Jones, and this was what Sid had wanted to know, and she went, knowing it, to see Chauncy at the bar.

  A pair of waitresses were laying out the buffet in the lounge, and Chauncy’s attitude indicated disapproval. Aloof and scornful behind the bar, he expressed in his withdrawal a deep conviction that luncheon buffets were an intolerable intrusion that attracted the excessive patronage of women, who were collateral intruders tending to complicate life by ordering fancy concoctions that were difficult and time-consuming to mix, and were not, besides, fit to drink. Chauncy was, in fact, a Swiss chocolate anachronism with a profound and mute longing for an earlier and simpler day of nickel beers and brass rails and men only, when lunch was served, if served at all, properly at the bar as a house treat for paying customers. This mute longing was not based on simple memory, for Chauncy was hardly old enough to remember the time when such conditions prevailed. It went much deeper than that. It was a kind of vestigial ache, scarcely diagnosed for what it was and passed along in mystic transmission from primitive ancestral bartenders.

  Sid sat on a stool at the bar and claimed his attention. The soft light of appreciation in his limpid eyes was qualified by the unfortunate fact that she was a woman out of place, but that it was there at all was at the same time a concession, aesthetically, to the kind of woman she was. Chauncy had a pure and lustless love of pretty things that simple looking satisfied, and his sterner convictions could always be compromised by anything in this category—
a bottle, an electric beer sign, a certain face. He moved into position opposite Sid, brown hands with polished nails placed flat on the bar.

  “Yes, ma’m?”

  “I believe I’ll have a bourbon on the rocks, if you please.”

  The stark simplicity of the order spoke well for the quality of her character, and Chauncy, after filling it, lingered in the vicinity and watched her discreetly.

  “Do you know who I am?” she said.

  “Yes, ma’m. Some faces I forget easy, and some I forget hard.”

  “Well, what an absolutely nice thing to say. I think. Did you mean it as a compliment?”

  “I meant it kindly as a fact, ma’m.”

  “Do you know something, Chauncy? I have a notion that you are an exceptional person. Do you mind my calling you Chauncy?”

  “No, ma’m. Chauncy’s my name, and I expect to be called by it.”

  “I’ve often heard my husband speak highly of you, and now I can understand why.”

  “Mr. Gideon Jones is a generous gentleman. We’ve had many pleasant discussions.”

  “I suppose you know that he’s been put into jail.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’m. An egregious error, I’m sure.”

  “Did you know the lady he’s suspected erroneously of killing?”

  “Only by name and reputation. I remember her from years ago and from the recent evening she was here.”

  “The evening she drank gimlets with Mr. Jones?”

  “Yes, ma’m. An innocent episode, I assure you. She asked Mr. Jones to buy her the gimlet, which he did. They talked a while at a table, and Mr. Jones left alone.”

  “I know. I don’t suspect Mr. Jones of any thing more than a kind of amiable and temporary soft-headedness, Chauncy, and so you needn’t try to protect him. The lady is the one I’m interested in at the moment, and I wonder if you can remember how long she was here after Mr. Jones left.”

  “I can estimate, if you like.”

  “Please do.”

  “Between half an hour and an hour. I regret that I can’t be more exact.”

  “When it comes to that, Chauncy, you are a good deal more exact than doctors and coroners. Thank you very much.”

  “I’m pleased to be of help, ma’m.”

  “Do you remember if she was alone all that time?”

  “Oh, no. She was not alone. Several people stopped at her table to speak with her, and one or two, as I recall, sat with her until she left.”

  “When she left, did she leave alone?”

  “I think not. I have a vague remembrance of someone accompanying her.”

  “But you’re not sure?”

  “That’s correct. I’m not sure.”

  “That’s too bad, Chauncy. I wish you could be.”

  “I’m sorry to disappoint you, ma’m.”

  “You shouldn’t be. I have no right to expect too much, and you are doing wonderfully well as it is. Does your vague remembrance of someone accompanying her include a vague remembrance of who that someone might have been?”

  “No, ma’m. It doesn’t, and it’s odd, for you’d think it would.”

  “How do you explain that it doesn’t?”

  “As I said, some faces you remember easy and some you remember hard. This is due, I believe, to the nature of pleasure. Your face, for example, if you will excuse me, is a face that gives one pleasure to remember, and it is therefore remembered easily and easily visualized, so that it can be seen at will in the imagination when one needs the refreshment of something good to look at.”

  “It’s wholly unnecessary, Chauncy, to ask to be excused for saying something like that.”

  “I’m happy that you’re not offended, ma’m.”

  “On the contrary, I’m delighted. Are you sure you’re not just being exceptionally nice? Do you actually sometimes look at my face in your imagination?”

  “I have done so in the past, and I hope I may be permitted to continue.”

  “Not only are you permitted, Chauncy, you are urged. Here and now you have permission to look at my face in your imagination whenever it pleases you.”

  “Thank you. I’ll be most circumspect as to time and place.”

  “Is it your judgment, then, that you may not remember the person who may have left here with Beth Thatcher because the person may have a face that it doesn’t please you to remember?”

  “That’s my judgment, ma’m, for what it’s worth. I call it selective memory, and I believe that it becomes highly developed in certain of us who serve in positions that deny us the right to be discriminatory in our contacts. If I may say so, I would bear a heavy burden if I were unable to expunge immediately from my memory about 90 percent of the people I serve.”

  “You may certainly say so, Chauncy, and I admire you for saying it. You’re a gentleman and a philosopher of the highest order, and it has been a pleasure to talk with you.”

  “The pleasure was mine, ma’m, and I hope Mr. Gideon Jones is soon released from jail.”

  On this elevated plane of mutual respect, which was genuine, Sid and Chauncy parted, and Sid came on over to the county jail to see me. It was almost one o’clock when she got there, and I was full of chicken-fried steak and cream gravy when she arrived. I won’t go into the details of what was said and done, the little of either that was possible under the imposed conditions, except that it was permitted to go on for quite a long time, thanks to a feeling of prejudice in our favor held by Harley Murchison, who had beat me at dominoes last night and was looking forward to beating me again after supper was served later. She reported the events of the day, which I have set down in action and dialogue dressed up a little by imagination within the bounds of possibility, if not probability, and then, after a eulogy of Chauncy’s superior character and intellect, we said good-by again with restrained fervor, and she went home.

  She was tired and sticky after a busy time on a hot day, and she went upstairs and had a shower and lay down on the bed in our room to think about what she had learned and where she now was in relation to it, and where she was, so far as she could see, was somewhat behind where she had been when she started. As stated, she was convinced that Thelma Thatcher had told the truth, inasmuch as it confirmed Sid’s own notions. She was also convinced that Wilson Thatcher had not been foolish enough to kill anyone over a matter that could have been settled much less dangerously otherwise, although Wilson’s potential for foolishness was demonstrably considerable, and that left me out in front all alone, in jail and available. This trend of thought left her feeling depressed and inadequate and wanting to cry, and so she cursed a little and closed her eyes and took several deep breaths and went sound asleep.

  To her surprise, when she woke, it was quite late, going on six, and she began at once to understand from a hollow ache in her stomach that she was in need of food, if not actually hungry. She had another shower, a quick one, and pulled on a shirt and a pair of shorts and went downstairs to the kitchen, where she found cold roast beef for a sandwich and cold milk to drink with it. She would have preferred beer to the milk, but one beer generally led to several, as she knew from experience, and she needed a clear head to think with. After eating the beef sandwich and drinking the cold milk, she went with her clear head out onto the back terrace. The day had cooled off, and there was a soft breeze, and she sat there in the breeze and began trying to think, but it was rather futile, all thoughts coming to nothing new, and then suddenly she remembered that tomorrow night was the night of the meeting of the discussion group, at which she and Rose Pogue were to discuss Zoroaster, and she realized that it would be absolutely impossible for her to go. It would be necessary for her to tell Rose at once, so that Rose could plan to do everything as best she could alone. It would be placing Rose in a difficult position, of course, but, then, Rose was intellectual and ingenious, and would manage very well to fil
l in Sid’s time with only a little advance notice.

  Getting up, Sid went inside to the telephone in the hall and dialed Rose’s number.

  “Hello,” she said. “Is that you, Rose?”

  “Yes,” Rose said. “It’s Sid, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is,” Sid said, “and I should have called you sooner, but it simply didn’t enter my mind.”

  “Where on earth have you been all day? I’ve tried and tried without success to reach you.”

  “I’ve been busy investigating things, but I must say that I haven’t gotten much of anywhere with it.”

  “Well, darling, I was simply thunderstruck when I read in the papers what had happened to Gid, and I only wanted to say that if there is the slightest thing I can do to help, you mustn’t hesitate to call on me.”

  “There is something, actually, and that’s really what I’ve called about. I’ve just remembered the discussion group tomorrow night, and I can’t be there. Would you mind doing it alone?”

  “I won’t say that I wouldn’t mind ordinarily, but under the circumstances it can hardly be helped. With Gid in jail, you can’t be expected to engage effectively in a discussion of Zoroaster.”

  “It’s very kind of you, Rose. I’m sorry to leave you in such a fix.”

  “No, no, darling. You are not to let it distress you in the least. You already have enough on your mind as it is.”

  “Thanks enormously, Rose. You’re so clever about such things, I’m sure you’ll manage beautifully without me.”