by Vera Caspary
The detectives knew this, but were skeptical of the suicide theory. Their questions showed that they believed that someone had committed the deed and had later, stupidly, removed the object. Had it been left on the body, suicide would have been taken for granted. Later he heard all of this shouted from the car radio and in much more colorful language. The announcer’s overdramatic voice irritated him, too.
Several cars were parked on the street before the Strode house, and the police car was still there. Don opened the door. “Elaine isn’t seeing anyone,” he said, but conceded that Ralph was not just anyone and could be admitted. There was an air of importance about Don; he strutted about like a civic official. Status had been acquired as he sat at Fletchers Strode’s desk, offering drinks and information to reporters. The grateful audience built up his self-esteem. He told nothing but known facts, but his growing assurance gave truth a racy flavor.
Elaine had spent the afternoon pacing and studying the pattern of her bedroom rugs, and throwing herself upon the bed and watching leaf shadows on the wall. The doors of the old house were of heavy wood, the walls thick, but she could hear the murmur of voices. When Don said that Ralph had come, she combed her hair and touched up her face. In the hall a flash of light assaulted her. The shock sent her staggering back a few steps. Arms caught her. She felt his presence before she recognized her lover.
The camera was focused again.
“Get the hell out of here,” Ralph snapped.
“Sorry, mister.” While he apologized, the photographer took a second picture of the widow. “Thank you so much, Mrs. Strode,” he said as he skipped out.
In the living room Ralph drew the curtains. Peeping Toms with cameras had infested the garden. “Those bastards,” Ralph said, then turned to greet her. “Are you all right?”
“There’ve been detectives poking around here all morning. They don’t believe it was suicide.”
“Yes I know. They questioned me, too.”
“Have you met Sergeant Knight?”
“No. A couple of other guys.”
“What did they ask you about me?”
“Questions.”
“Are you trying to keep something from me?”
“What’s on your mind? Was Sergeant Knight tough?”
“He was the soul of gallantry. In a vicious way.”
“Don’t worry,” Ralph said in a cajoling tone that might assure a moribund patient that the death pangs were no more than inflamed imagination. “In cases of this sort, where the cause of death isn’t determined, they’re always suspicious of the widow. Just the same, I think you ought to have a good lawyer.”
“You think so? Wouldn’t that make me look,” she switched on a nervous smile, “as if I needed a lawyer?”
“You do. If for no more than protection against the gallantry of ambitious detectives.” As an intern riding the ambulance of General Hospital, Ralph had learned a lot about the police. The courteous ones were invariably the most ruthless. Front-page crime, the appetite for notoriety, the uses of publicity, blinded men to compassion.
“Don’s been helping me through the questioning. He’s a lawyer, you know.”
“Has he a license to practice here?”
“He hasn’t taken his California bar examinations, but he expects to do one of those cram courses. They’re nothing at all, he says, for a trained legal mind. Basically, the law’s the same all over the country. And since he’s just standing by and helping me with advice, I don’t think I need anyone else.”
Donald Hustings’s efforts to impress new acquaintances had not impressed Ralph. Nevertheless he said, “If that’s the way you want it,” and let it go at that.
“I know it was suicide and I’m sure they’ll find it out. Perhaps,” Elaine said hopefully, “Fletcher wrote something about it in his diary. We gave them the diary this morning.”
She went to him shyly. “One thing you can be sure of, Ralph. No one will ever know about us.”
“I’m not worried.”
“I am. Scared to death.”
They stood apart as though the memory of the affair barred intimacy. Whatever urge had drawn them together was now so flavored with guilt that they shrank from each other. Their very looks seemed to have changed. She saw the jutted jaw, the flesh sparsely distributed over stern bones, the overwhite, freckled flesh, the dusty reddish hair. With a faint ghost of a smile she offered thanks for his faith in her. He regarded this effort as frailty, saw her parlor as ivory melted down to the texture of wax. Faint violet circles framed her eyes. Her beauty was over-refined, weary, scarcely alive.
Uncertainly Ralph extended his hand. Elaine took a few wary steps toward him. He folded an arm about her, then the other arm. This was no more than a gesture of consolation. She shuddered close, clung to him as to a rock in a treacherous current. Neither was aware that the door had opened.
Cindy had not thought of knocking. A living room is common ground for all members of the household. The girl was shocked, sincerely. Ralph and Elaine sprang apart as through the embrace had been of passion rather than compassion. They offered no excuses.
Shock waned as indignation took over. Fletcher’s daughter wore a smirk that clearly asked, “What did I always say about this woman?” Ralph stood too straight. Elaine bowed under the weight of shame that rose, not from this, but the earlier situation; as though on that adulterous Thursday they had been discovered together in her bed. Her eyes sought a resting place, found the couch stripped of its pillows. It seemed unreal, contrived, a scene of drama arranged for action, absurd. But Fletcher was dead. The nonsense was tragic.
Ralph said, “I’m going back to the office. If you want anything, phone.”
“Thanks for everything,” Elaine said.
There were no farewells. The man marched out and Elaine stood there with an empty look in her eyes. Cindy waited for a word of excuse. Elaine did not bother to speak. She offered insult like a queen who knew it her privilege to ignore the feelings of a waiting woman.
In the bedroom Cindy found Don stretched out, enjoying secret thoughts. Her indignant version of the scene, “Daddy’s not cold in his grave, it’s absolutely brazen,” encouraged a dream born of the study of Fletcher’s diary and nourished by a quick computation of the Strode assets. Seeing himself like Gregory Peck (but younger), addressing a conference of elderly millionaires, Don Hustings informed the board of directors that Heatherington Industries was but one of the many organizations that sought the talents and investments of Donald Hustings. “I happen to control considerable capital, gentlemen.”
“Why don’t you say something?” demanded Cindy. “Why do you lie there looking mysterious? Did you hear what I said?”
“Yes, my sweet. Every fascinating word.”
“Well, what do you think about it?”
“Elaine’s a devious woman.”
“We knew from the beginning she was no good. What did a girl her age want a man like Daddy for except his money? It was in her mind when she picked him up in the restaurant.” Although Don often heard these grievances, Cindy could not resist going through the catalogue again. It had always irked her to hear her father brag about Elaine’s intelligence, her honors at college. Hunter College! Cindy had not stayed in school beyond her sophomore year but she had, at least, gone to a respectable college and belonged to a sorority that would never have admitted Elaine Guardino. “What was she but a common New York working girl, a gold-digger from the start?”
Don let her rave. His dream had progressed to a conference with Nan Burke’s father, who had entreated him to accept the title of vice-president. Cindy went on and on with her opinions and her mother’s complaints, including the theory that Fletcher’s illness and operation that destroyed his voice had been visited upon him as punishment for the desertion of a loyal wife. To hear Cindy, one would think Elaine had planted the cancer in his throat.
“I wouldn’t put anything past her. Not anything.”
“What?” asked Don, re
luctantly taking leave of the banker.
“You haven’t been paying attention and,” suddenly shy, Cindy approached the bed like a virgin, “I’ve got something to tell you. Important.”
Don yawned. Although he had given only half an ear to her raving, he felt that he would go mad if he had to hear any more. “Yeah, I know.”
“You don’t know anything.” She had become wildly agitated, clinging to the footboard with tight, white hands. “You’re going to be terribly, terribly, terribly angry, but I’ve simply got to tell you. I’ll die if I don’t.”
The doorbell rang. Cindy leaped as if she had been attacked from behind. Her pallor took a greenish hue.
“Better pull yourself together before you talk to anyone,” Don said. The guest room window showed a bit of the driveway, just enough for him to catch a glimpse of the car that had just been parked there. He paused to straighten his shirt and run a comb through his hair before he went to greet the visitor.
THE POLICEMAN ON guard asked no questions when the Rolls-Royce was driven in by a uniformed chauffeur. In visiting the death mansion, Nan Burke had felt the need for formality and had her houseman put on his peaked cap and drive her there. She had canceled a committee meeting for a concert to benefit talented children and had hurried to offer consolation to her bereaved friend. On the way she had stopped at a florist to pick up a bowl of white orchids. No relation could have shown more exquisite sympathy. At every meeting and each farewell, Nan and Cindy touched cheekbones, but upon this sad occasion, Nan pressed poor little Cindy to her ample breast.
“He was such a dear man,” declared Nan passionately.
“He simply adored you,” Cindy said.
“He only met me once.”
“My father was a judge of character, and he knew what a wonderful friend you’d been to me.”
Both girls cried copiously, Nan into a bit of Swiss linen edged with Valenciennes lace, Cindy into one of the paper handkerchiefs she had found it necessary to carry since tragedy struck.
“To think we were all together, and your father so lively last week. In this very room.”
Cindy explained that the police had taken the cushions. “To examine in their laboratories,” she whispered breathlessly. The police, it seems, had emptied all of the cigarette boxes, but not for examination. There was not one cigarette left in the house. Nan took a diamond-encrusted case from her polished crocodile bag. As she leaned close to touch Cindy’s cigarette with her jeweled lighter, she whispered, “What really happened?”
“It wasn’t suicide.”
Both girls inhaled emotionally. Nan’s whisper sank to a lower pitch. “Do they know who did it?”
“The police have a very good idea.”
The odor of mystery increased Cindy’s importance. Nan’s awe was as clear as a newspaper headline. As the daughter of a famous mortgage and loan banker and philanthropist, and as a leader in social and charitable affairs, she had often been photographed for the society section of local newspapers, but Cindy’s picture would probably appear on the front page.
Don too, showed a rise in status when he thanked Nan, sincerely but without too much effusion, for her sympathy.
“May I offer you a cup of tea? Or coffee? In the absence of our hostess.”
“Where is Mrs. Strode?”
“In retreat,” replied Don with a cryptic smile. “Would you prefer a drink?”
Nan thought a martini would be divine. “Very dry and without the olive. That’s seventy-five calories I can’t afford. Is Mrs. Strode prostrate?”
“I never saw anyone calmer in my life.”
The girls went to the bar to keep Don company while he mixed their drinks. Nan admired his skill. “Rexie’s all thumbs when it comes to anything slightly useful. So we have to depend on William.” This was the houseman who had donned the uniform to drive her to their house. “What an utter cocktail, simply out of this world. I wish you’d teach William, but it’s never the same with help, is it?” She had become merry, laughing as she added, “A good cocktail needs TLC as much as a baby. Tender, loving care.”
Don acknowledged the wit with hearty laughter while Cindy, aware of the mourning mood, showed a demure smile. This changed to sly pleasure as she announced with deliberate hesitancy that she had another important bit of news.
“Tell me, I can’t bear waiting.”
“You’re going to have new neighbors. Guess who.”
Nan had hoped for further revelations about the tragedy. She made a noble effort to keep her disappointment from showing. “You, darling? Not really! How great!”
Cindy did not think it would show bad taste if she permitted enthusiasm in describing the house. She spoke modestly of the neighborhood and size, but used fancy decorating magazines phrases in telling about the ingenious architecture, the modern Old-World charm, the boundless view. She knew that Nan would positively adore it and said they planned some wizard parties “after this is all over and we’re in a fun mood again.” In Cindy’s mind, magically, it was all over, there was plenty of money for gracious living and Nan’s friends thronged into the little house where a colored bartender in a white coat mixed cocktails while Cindy in a long hostess gown graciously received tributes to her cleverness in using genuine Pennsylvania antiques with modern Swedish.
“I’m not so sure about the house,” Don said as he stirred a second cocktail for Nan.
“Donnie!” Cindy was stricken by the announcement. She could not, in Nan’s presence, remind Don that her father’s death would profit them so that the house would be no problem at all. “Just because my poor father’s—I mean, it’s terribly distressing and all that—but I mean—we mustn’t give up.” Raised eyebrows conveyed a message, which Don seemed not to notice. “My poor Donnie’s been so . . . so . . . by this shock . . . I feel . . . well, he’s positively not himself. But we mustn’t lose interest in living, darling. Aren’t you still mad, mad, mad about the house?”
“I’m not sure it’s the right place for us.”
“Why not? You said it was the dream of your life to have a house at the very spang edge of the ocean?”
“I still do, love. And no one can say that the house isn’t as charming and picturesque as you say”—Don did not wish to denigrate his taste of the past week—“but don’t you think it’s a bit . . . unspacious?”
Cindy clung tenaciously to last week’s paradise. “It isn’t too small. For just two people.”
Don had found statelier mansions for his soul, places closer to the status of the Burkes’ crowd. “It just occurred to me sweet, that we might want to live more expansively.” He spread his hands to measure the growing dream. “And a slightly more convenient neighborhood. Somewhere closer to your place, Nan.”
“That would be just too lovely,” Nan said without excessive enthusiasm.
“But,” Cindy began again but Don, more and more enraptured by his visions, cut in with the modest news that he would not want a place quite as large as Nan’s but one that, he implied, would be luxurious. “We really ought to have a pool. There are so many days out here when the surf’s too high for comfortable swimming.” He added a tennis court and covered patio for parties. At the same time Mr. Heatherington was pleading with him for extra capital and Nan’s father was wondering whether young Hustings would consider a seat on the board of a complex of suburban banks.
Cindy could not easily accommodate herself to the larger dream. She parted reluctantly from the little house. Still considering herself a minor heiress, she had not yet raised herself to Nan’s level. What put Cindy into a superior position today was her role in the mystery drama. She let drop deftly the information that Elaine had gone about telling the world she expected her husband’s death, and in the very manner that it had happened. Cindy still balked at the mention of suicide.
“She actually talked about it? My God!” Nan’s mind went to another committee meeting, a luncheon the next day, where guests were free to gossip until the coffee was served
and the chairman called for silence. “Tell me more about it. Everything. Do the police know that? What do they think?”
“We ought to be more discreet, love,” Don said reprovingly and shook his head at Cindy in the manner of a man who knew himself master of the house. “I don’t think the police would like mere opinion broadcast.”
“I only told Nan.”
“And I won’t say a word to anyone,” Nan promised.
With the humility that only a big man can show, Don begged Nan to forgive his warning. He had not meant to rebuke the girls. “It’s just that one has to be a bit cautious in these matters. It’s safer on the prudent side.” And he turned the conversation from this spicy subject by asking about her husband, her father, and the state of their health and business. Nan listened humbly as Don offered opinions about banking, letting fall the names of famous financiers and of stocks worthy of investment, speaking with authority of tax laws, interest rates, blue chip stocks. It was hard for Nan to keep from yawning. She might as well have been at home with her father, her husband, and their cronies. Her arrogance dwindled; she became a mere wife and daughter and soon afterward left, escorted to the Rolls by Don, who stepped aside to let the chauffeur open the door.
After she had gone he stayed in the driveway with the two policemen. Their conversation was unimportant. They spoke of baseball, their wives, and the weather. The sky had become clear, the memory of fog drifting off. “What a country this West is,” Don said. “Still open to pioneer spirit. There’s nothing a man can’t accomplish out here if he’s got the stuff in him.” He tapped his chest vigorously.
