Death Before Bedtime

CHAPTER SIX

1

“Moral turpitude,” said the Senate and they refused to seat the Senator-designate until a committee had checked him out.

The morning was full of meetings and reports in the house. Mrs. Rhodes and Miss Pruitt were especially upset. Langdon was remarkably interested (at last having found a suitable theme for his magazine) and even the Pomeroys delayed their trip back to Talisman City to find out what would happen. To what extent Pomeroy himself was involved in the Senator’s numerous deals, I did not know. As far as I could tell, not at all: in this one at least.

After breakfast, I conferred with Winters who, under the ruse of taking some last photographs of the Senator’s study and of Rufus Hollister’s bedroom had returned to the house where he was largely ignored, in marked contrast to his earlier visits.

I found him alone in the study. The wall which had been blown away was now repaired, as far as the brick went. The plastering had not been done, however, so the room had a raw look to it: half paneled and half new-laid brick.

Winters was glancing idly at some of the scrapbooks when I came in.

“Oh, it’s you.” He sounded neutral, to say the least. He looked calmer and happier than usual … with good reason considering that he was now off the hot seat, his case successfully concluded.

“Did you ever go through these?” I asked, looking over his shoulder at a yellowed clipping, dated 1927: a photograph of the Senator shaking hands with a slim woman in a cloche hat.

“Oh yes.”

I tried to read the caption of the picture, Winters tried to turn the page; I deliberately lifted his hand off the page and read the caption: “Senator Rhodes being congratulated on his recent victory in the primaries by Verbena Pruitt, National Committeewoman.”

“Who would’ve thought she ever looked like that?” I was impressed. It was impossible to tell what her face was like in this old picture … but she had had a good figure.

“I don’t think she was ever much,” said Winters; if he was irritated with the abrupt way I had pushed him aside, he didn’t show it.

“What do you think about this new development?”

“What new development?” He looked at me blandly.

“You know what I mean. The business which Hollister was to take the rap for, it’s come out in the papers.”

“The case is finished,” said Winters, opening the 1936 scrapbook.

“Who got the word to the papers?”

“I haven’t any idea.”

“According to the Times the Government has been investigating the Senator’s company for two years.”

“I think that’s right.” Winters sounded bored.

“According to the papers this morning the Senator was just as much implicated as Hollister.”

“Yes?”

“In other words, it doesn’t look as if Hollister was to have taken the rap for the Senator’s misdeeds … in other words, the confession was a phony.”

“Very logical,” said Winters, admiring a Berryman cartoon of Lee Rhodes in the Washington Star.

“I’ll say it’s logical.” I was growing irritated. “Is there any real evidence that Hollister was to take the rap for the Governor and Rhodes? According to the newspaper account, they were all in it equally.”

“What about the papers you got in the mail from your anonymous admirer? What about them? They proved that the Senator had fixed it for Hollister to be the front man. Hollister killed him before he could finish the arrangements … that’s simple enough, isn’t it?”

“You don’t really believe that?”

“Why not?” And that was the most that I could get out of Winters. The thought that someone might have bought him occurred to me again with some force. More than ever was I determined to meddle in this affair.

While he looked at the old clippings, I wandered about the study, looking at the bomb-scarred desk, the books on the shelves. Then, aware that I was going to get no satisfaction out of Winters, I left the study, without a word of farewell. I had about twenty-four hours, I knew, in which to produce the murderer and since I had almost nothing to go on it was a little difficult to determine what to do next. I had several ideas, none very good.

It occurred to me, being of a logical disposition, that I might come to a solution more quickly than not if I were to proceed in an orderly way to examine each of the suspects and then, by collating their stories, arrive at a solution. It sounded remarkably easy; in fact, just the thought of being logical so delighted me that for several minutes I enjoyed the sensation of having solved the murder successfully.

I had taken care of Pomeroy. I knew, very likely, more about his relations with the Senator than the police did, thanks to Mrs. Rhodes’ excellent Burgundy of the night before.

I still had certain doubts about Camilla. She was the next logical person to eliminate. Why, I wondered, had she tried to make me think her husband was the murderer? It was an important point, all the more so since she was a beneficiary in the old man’s will, and had known it, too.

I found her off by herself in a corner of the drawing room, studying the latest issue of Harper’s Bazaar. She was reading the thin ribbon of text which accompanies the advertisements; this thin ribbon was, I could see, the work of the latest young novelist: it concerned a young boy in Montgomery, Alabama, who killed nine flies in as many minutes on the eve of the Fourth of July … I had read it earlier, being of a literary turn (though I belong to the older literary generation of Carson McCullers and have never quite absorbed the newcomers even though they take mighty nice photographs).

“I just love it,” said Camilla, without enthusiasm, closing the magazine; she was dressed in a very businesslike suit, as though ready for traveling.

“We were going to take the noon train, Roger and I, but since poor Johnson got involved in this terrible mess Roger thought, out of loyalty, we should stay and see him through.”

“I think that’s swell,” I said, earnestly.

“Yes,” she said brightly. We stood looking at one another awkwardly for perhaps a minute. Even in this age of jet-planes and chromium plate, there are certain proprieties which those who occupy the upper echelon of our society insist upon maintaining, regardless of their true feelings. It is usually agreed upon in these circles that when a man has gone to bed with a gentlewoman he has become, up to a point, her cavaliere servente, as they used to say in Venice … the Venetians used to say, that is.

It was apparent to both of us that a certain dignity was lacking in our relationship; neither had spoken of love or duty, and both, in fact, had acted subsequently as though nothing had happened, depriving man’s greatest emotion and most sacred moment of its true splendor; in fact there had been the faintest note of the barnyard in our coupling which, doubtless, worried the hen though the rooster, if I can call myself one even in this analogy, was not much concerned. But there was a game to be played … two games, even … and I had very little time.

“Camilla,” the name sounded rich and husky on my lips.

“Yes?” Her voice squeaked just a little as she turned two dark bright eyes up at me.

“I … I wonder if you’d have lunch with me.”

“Oh, but …” She “butted” for a few moments and then, aware that her position as a lady was at stake, she agreed to a brief lunch at the Mayflower where the food was good in the cocktail lounge and there was a string quartette.

The Mayflower was very grand; I had been there only once before, in the main dining room. This time we went to the cocktail lounge, a dim, marbleized, ferny place full of people dining in the gloom to the sound of soft music; it was a perfect place for an assignation. Unfortunately the customers were mainly ladies who had dropped in after a hard morning of shopping, or five-percenters discussing deals with prospective clients … the Congressional and political figures did not, presumably, lunch here though they could be found, often, in this room at five o’clock.

We were led to a corner table by a distinguished-looking headwaiter who resembled a Bavarian Foreign Minister.

“Here we are,” said Camilla and a high mouse-giggle escaped from behind her ruddy lips; she was very nervous. I could not imagine that this great plain fool was the same woman who had only a few nights before come to my room like a winged furnace, like Lady Potiphar at the end of the first month. Dressed and full of rectitude, she seemed what she was: an ordinary girl from Talisman City.

We ordered cold Virginia ham and mint juleps. I have always hated mint juleps and I don’t think she cared for them either but somehow our proximity to the Old Dominion made us reckless; outside snow was wetly falling.

“I suppose you look forward to getting back home?” I began formally.

“I certainly look forward to leaving this horrid city,” she said sincerely, biting off a piece of mint.

“It hasn’t been a very nice time for any of us,” I said.

“We have aged, Roger and I, a hundred years,” she said looking deep into my eyes. Unfortunately the stately gloom of the place prevented me from experiencing the full power of those shining dark eyes.

“It looks as though his contract is all set, doesn’t it?”

She nodded. “I’m told the first orders are being made up now. We couldn’t be more thrilled.”

“I should think so. Do you think you’ll start back tonight?”

She shook her head. “No, not now. Of course it may not be as nice as I think.”

“What may not be?”

“Home. My friends. What on earth will they think when they know? And of course they know now; everyone does.”

“Knows what?”

“That I am Lee’s daughter. I hardly dare face them at the club, assuming we’ll be allowed to keep our membership.” We were approaching by a circuitous route the true soul of Camilla Pomeroy: the club and all that the club meant.

“At least your mother was his common-law wife.” This didn’t sound too good but my intention was kindly.

“As if that will make any difference to them. No, I must face this thing through.” She set her jaw, a sprig of mint clenched between her teeth.

“It’s hardly your fault, your birth.”

“You don’t understand Talisman City,” she said grimly. “The people there live by the book …”

“And have not charity …”

“What?”

“And are difficult,” I said. I have always regarded as a stroke of good fortune that I was not born or brought up in a small American town; they may be the backbone of the nation but they are also the backbone of ignorance, bigotry, and boredom, all in vast quantities. I remember one brief stay in a little upstate New York village where I was referred to, behind my back, as “the Jew from New York City,” despite the presence of a Sargeant at that very moment in the Episcopal Council of Bishops … such is the generous feeling of our American peasants for strangers; I didn’t envy Mrs. Pomeroy’s return to her native heath.

“Oh, very. But then we have to have standards after all,” she said, showing she was one of them, fallen or not.

While we lunched, we talked about her early days, about the Senator. “We were very close even though I never dreamed the truth. Mother would never say anything except that she was glad I was seeing him because he was such a distinguished man. She was especially pleased when I organized a platoon of Girl Scouts to work for him on one of his campaigns. Father, that is her husband, hated Lee and used to make very uncivil remarks whenever I came home from one of my visits to the Rhodes’ house but Mother always made him keep still.”

“It must’ve been quite a shock, when you found out.”

She rolled her eyes briefly to heaven. “I’ll say it was. I thought seriously of killing myself, being young and dramatic but then after a while I got used to the idea … and Lee was marvelous with me, called me ‘his own girl.’ ” She seemed, suddenly, very moved, for the first time since the trouble began.

“He must have been very fond of you. He would have to have been to include you in his will, knowing everything would come to light, embarrassing his family.”

“Much he cared about them!” This came out like a small explosion.

“You mean …”

“He hated both of them. Mrs. Rhodes was an ice-cold woman who married him because he was a young man who was going to make his mark, because she was ambitious. He went into politics and ruined his health and got mixed up with all sorts of terrible people and finally was killed by one of them just because she wanted to be a Senator’s wife, a President’s wife. How he used to complain to me about her! And his daughter: well, he understood her altogether too well … everyone did, what she was and is. Of course, he stopped her that once, when she ran off with a weight-lifter on the eve of her wedding to Verbena Pruitt’s nephew …”

“She was supposed to marry Verbena’s nephew?” I had not heard this before.

“That was the plan, only at the last minute, after the wedding dress was made and the reception already planned, she left home with this man. Lee brought her back and annulled the marriage but that didn’t change her.” I was rather proud of Ellen’s character; she would not be controlled by anyone.

“How did Verbena’s nephew turn out?”

Camilla frowned. “He became an alcoholic and later died in an accident. Even so, he was the catch of the season and everyone thought he had a great future ahead of him. He was rich and in the Foreign Service, his father had been Ambassador to Italy and what with Verbena’s influence and so on he could have risen to great heights.”

“But he did take to drink.”

“Even so, no one knew it at the time. Ellen had no business walking out.”

“Perhaps she suspected what his future might be; it looks as though she had better sense than her father.”

Camilla shook her head stubbornly; then, with woman’s logic, “Besides, he might not have been an alcoholic if she had married him. Well, her parents never forgave her for that particular scandal and then after she began to have men friends of all sorts they sent her away to New York where that sort of thing isn’t so noticeable.” Talisman City suddenly showed its bleak intolerant head, besprinkled with hayseed and moral rectitude. I saw no reason to defend Ellen who is a bit of a madwoman about sex; on the other hand, Camilla’s high and mighty line did not accord with her own behavior. It was obvious she hated Ellen and would use any stick to beat her with and Ellen always proffered a formidable mace for this purpose to anyone hostilely minded.

“Tell me,” I said, a little maliciously, “why do you think Rufus killed your father?”

She was startled. “Why Rufus … but obviously because of that business deal, the one Johnson’s involved in, too. At least that’s what Winters said. Rufus was to cover up for the others; he was to take the blame.”

“But now it’s all in the newspapers and Rufus is not taking the blame.”

“Then why did he say he was going to in his confession?”

“Perhaps because someone else wrote it for him, after killing him.”

Her eyes grew round. “You’re not suggesting that Rufus was killed, too?”

“It’s possible.”

“But who would want to kill him?”

“The same man who murdered your father.”

“But that man was Rufus.”

“There was a time when you weren’t so sure.”

Even in the gloom, I could see her flush. “That’s not fair,” she said in a small voice.

“Why did you think your husband killed the Senator?” I closed in, aware of my advantage.

“I told you. I was upset, hysterical.…”

“Why did you think he did it?”

“For … for the same reason everyone else did, because of the contracts running out, because Lee wouldn’t help him.”

“Yet you knew that the contract had already been secured through someone else.”

“Verbena told you that, didn’t she?” Out it shot, before she could stop herself. She bit her lip.

I was slowly getting the picture, all the background was in a last: now for the foreground, to fill in the shadowy outline at the puzzle’s center, to construct the murderer. I was growing nervous with excitement.

I controlled my voice, though, sounded offhand. “Yes, as a matter of fact Verbena did mention to me that she had helped Pomeroy get his government contract before he came to Washington to see Lee.…”

“That wasn’t wise of her at all. These things are so delicate; it could affect our whole business. That was why Roger said nothing about it even after they arrested him.”

“If you knew that he had no real quarrel with the Senator, that he wasn’t ruined, why did you tell me that night that he was the murderer?”

“Because,” she had regained control of herself now, “because I didn’t know until the next day that his contract was set. He told me when it looked as if he might be arrested any minute. He knew that I adored my father more than anyone else in the world. He knew that I had lost my head when he was murdered and I think he knew, also, though he never mentioned it, that I suspected him of the murder, to get even with Lee, to get my inheritance … so he broke an old rule of his and told me about his business, about how he had gone to Verbena and she had helped him, despite the Senator. Then I knew how absurd the whole case against him really was.…”

“But you had come to me and told me you thought he was the murderer.”

“I thought he was, yes. I thought he’d gone mad. I thought he’d kill me next to get the inheritance. I thought he was desperate and so I went off my head for twenty-four hours. It was just too much, having everybody know I was Lee’s daughter; everything was so awful that I … I came to your room. I don’t know why but I did. For some reason I was afraid Roger might kill me that night. I … was terribly ashamed afterwards.”

There seemed nothing more to clear up here. Her story was accurate, as far as I could tell. It was also revelatory. Verbena Pruitt began to loom large in the background. What was her role in all this? I had never suspected that she would ever seem mysterious to me. I had underestimated her.

I was ready now to end the session with Camilla Pomeroy; unfortunately we had to go through a number of gyrations which propriety, at least in Talisman City, demands of those who have known one another’s bodies.

I told her that knowing her had been one of the most wonderful events of my life and that I hoped we should meet again, soon.

She told me that I had helped her more than she could say, at a desperate moment. She asked me to forgive her for what she had done. Not entirely sure for which of her treacheries she desired forgiveness, I delivered myself of a blanket absolution. Then, our love affair put on ice as it were, each with a beautiful memory, she pressed my hand and left me to pay the check.

When I got to the lobby she was gone. I was about to call a cab when I saw two familiar figures in serious talk, half-hidden by a potted tree. I went over and said hello to Elmer Bush and Johnson Ledbetter, the Senator-Designate and perhaps never-to-be.

They both looked as though I was the last person in the world they wanted to see at this moment. The falling statesman looked puffy-eyed and tired. The journalist looked eager, like an opportunistic tiger courting a lost sheep. They were cooking up some scheme.

“How are you today, ‘Senator’?” I said brightly; even the falling statesman got the quotes.

“Very well, Sargeant.” I was surprised he remembered my name.

“This is a grave crisis,” said Elmer Bush in his best doom-voice.

“A misunderstanding,” said Ledbetter in a strangled voice.

“We hope, however, to have the truth before the public tonight, on my program,” said Elmer tightly.

“I hope, sir, that you will be vindicated.”

“Thank you, my boy,” said Ledbetter in a husky voice. At that moment the famous newspaperman’s cry, “There he is!” was heard in the lobby, somewhat muffled out of deference to the Mayflower’s dignity; and a journalist and photographer came pounding toward us, their rimless spectacles gleaming, their faces red from cold and pleasure as they cornered the falling star.

“It has all been,” intoned Johnson Ledbetter, “a fantastic mistake.”

2

Fantastic mistake or not, it was the main conversation in Washington these days and, to read the newspapers, everywhere else, too. Corruption when it stains senatorial togas, always ceases to become squalid and becomes tragical, as Mr. Ledbetter would say.

After leaving the Mayflower, I went to the house of Mrs. Goldmountain, knowing that she was to be at home this afternoon. She was, I had discovered, a good source of information, having spent the better part of her fifty years climbing upwards socially; along the way she had investigated nearly every eminent closet in Washington society, she was also proving to be a source of revenue to me as far as the Heigh-Ho Dogfood Company went.

I was led to the yellow room where I found her in deep conversation with that Vice-President of Heigh-Ho to whom I had spoken the day before.

As I entered, she was saying, “Hermione has a range of four octaves, of which three are usable.”

“But that’s marvelous,” said the official, a doggish-looking man, constructed on the order of a chow.

“Mr. Sargeant, I’m so happy you came by, and just at this moment, too. I’m sure your ears must’ve been burning.”

“Pete, here, knows what we think of him at Heigh-Ho,” said the chow, beaming, handing me his damp squashy paw to shake; I shook it quickly and let it drop. I bowed a moment over Mrs. G’s hand, the way diplomats are supposed to do.

“In many ways,” said the chow, “this will be the most novel public relations stunt of the age. You realize that?”

“That’s what I’m paid for,” I said modestly, making a mental note to arrange to take a percentage of the gross on Hermione’s various activities; I was wondering whether an agent’s fee, as well, would be too exorbitant, when Mrs. Goldmountain recalled me from my greed.

“Although I am, in principle, opposed to Self-Exploitation, I couldn’t, in all conscience, allow my girl not to take advantage of this wonderful opportunity, nor could I be so cruel as to keep her talent under a bushel.”

I refrained from commenting that that was probably just where it belonged, under the biggest heaviest bushel there was.

“You’ve taken the right line,” said the official gravely, impressed by Mrs. Goldmountain’s wealth and hard-earned social position, and excellent press relations; all that glitters is not a gold-mountain, I felt like telling him, but then it was to my interest to keep the farce going.

“Have you made arrangements about engaging Town Hall?”

He nodded. “It’s all being prepared now. I’m lining up the press. We’ll have a full coverage.”

“I can do all that,” I said quickly. “That’s my job, after all.”

“There’ll be a lot for you to do; don’t worry. Heigh-Ho, however, is getting behind this campaign with everything it’s got. We may even take radio time.” The noise of money coming my way, lulled me for a moment, like the sirens singing; but then, before I knew it, Hermione and not the sirens was singing.

She had been brought into the large drawing room next to the yellow room and her accompanist had begun to play.

A long yowl chilled my blood, more chilling was the fact that, despite the unmistakable canine quality of the voice, Hermione had perfect pitch. She was not, however, a trained musician.

Mrs. Goldmountain looked dreamily toward the open door through which floated, or rather raced, the poodle’s voice. “She practices every day … not too long, though. I don’t want her to strain her voice.”

“Maybe we ought to insure it,” said the dog-food purveyor anxiously, “wouldn’t want anything to happen to her. Lloyd’s would be only too glad to oblige us.”

“If you like … though I’m sure nothing will happen; she is always under the closest supervision.”

Hermione screamed her way through the “Bell Song” from Lakmé and, my nerves in tatters, my ears vibrating like beaten drums, I applauded loudly, along with the official from Heigh-Ho. Mrs. Goldmountain only smiled.

Then, after several points of business had been cleared up, Mrs. Goldmountain and I were left alone: the official gone back to New York to make an announcement to the news services, Hermione gone back to her quarters and the tin of fois gras to which she was often treated after singing.

It took me some time to get the subject off Hermione and back to the Rhodes family or rather to Ledbetter who now occupied my hostess’s thoughts.

“Johnson called me on the phone this morning (we’re very close, you know); he sounded simply awful.”

“I know, I saw him at the Mayflower this afternoon. He was with Elmer Bush.”

“At least Elmer will stand by him through thick and thin. Johnson will need friends.” I allowed that this was probably the case.

“This morning I telephoned the Vice-President to tell him that I was confident Johnson had done nothing wrong.”

“What did the Vice-President say?”

“Oh, he was on the floor. I didn’t get him but his secretary said she would give him my message.”

“Well, according to all accounts he seems guilty of fraud, along with the other two.”

“I doubt it but then I must confess I never read the newspapers … at least the political sections; those people are always writing lies about personal friends of mine, and then they never know what’s going on until it’s already happened.” She smiled sphinx-like, implying she did know; and perhaps she did.

“In any case, he probably won’t be allowed to take his seat.”

“I’m sure they’ll be able to arrange it,” she said confidently. “They need him, you know.”

I didn’t pursue this point.

“I blame that dreadful little man, the secretary, the one who killed himself, for everything. I’m sure he did it deliberately … made up all sorts of documents just to implicate Johnson. He was a nasty creature, I always thought, killing Lee like that and then purposely framing poor Johnson.” This was a novel twist.

“Did you know him at all?”

“Who? The secretary? Hardly, but I never liked his looks those few times I saw him. Johnson is building his case on the little man’s dishonesty, however. He swears to me that it’s a deliberate plot and I believe him. He quarreled with him the night he died.”

“Who quarreled with whom?”

“Johnson and that little man, you know, Hollister.”

“How do you know?”

“Johnson told me. He tells me everything, not that it’s any particular secret; soon everyone will know it.”

“But where did this take place?” Veils were trembling before my eyes; the figure at the puzzle’s center grew more distinct.

“Johnson spent the evening at the Rhodes’, with Mrs. Rhodes, the evening Hollister killed himself. Didn’t you see him? But of course not, you were at my party and Johnson should have been there, too, except he rightly decided that his first evening in Washington as a Senator should be spent with his predecessor’s widow, a very, very nice thing to do, but then Johnson is a nice man.”

“You mean he was in the house when Hollister died?”

“But of course and he had, he tells me, a private conversation with Hollister of the most unpleasant kind.”

“Without witnesses?”

“There would hardly be witnesses if the conversation was private.”

“I wonder why the papers didn’t mention that he was in the house when the murder took place.”

“Perhaps no one thought to tell them … they never know anything.”

3

For a while I entertained the mad fantasy that Verbena Pruitt, Mrs. Rhodes and the Senator-Designate (the only three in the house at the time, other than servants) might have got together and killed Rufus on their own. Each had a motive, except perhaps Verbena. The vision, however, of these three elderly political figures tiptoeing upstairs to shoot Rufus Hollister was much too ludicrous.

I arrived at the house shortly before dinner. It was already dark outside and the curtains were drawn against the night. The plain-clothes man who usually stood guard was nowhere in sight.

In the drawing room I found Mrs. Rhodes, quite alone, playing solitaire at a tiny Queen Anne desk. She greeted me with her usual neutrality.

“I suppose,” I said, “you’ll be glad to see the last of us.”

“The last of you under these circumstances,” she replied courteously, motioning me to sit beside her.

“What do you plan to do when all this is over, when the estate is settled and everything is taken care of?”

“Do?” she looked at me blankly for a moment, as though she had not, until now, conceived there would be a future.

“I mean do you intend to go back to Talisman City, or live here?”

She gave me a long look, as though I had asked her a nearly impossible question. Finally she said, “I shall stay here of course. All my friends are here,” she added mechanically.

“Like Mrs. Goldmountain?”

She smiled suddenly, for the first time since I met her, like sun on the snow. “No, not like Mrs. Goldmountain. Others … my old friends from the early days. We had no very close friends back home, the old ones died off and we made no new ones, except politically. I haven’t lived there since we came to Washington.”

“I saw Mrs. Goldmountain today.”

“Yes?” She was clearly not interested.

“I understand she’s a great friend of Governor Ledbetter’s.”

“I believe so.”

“She is certainly taking his side in this business.”

“As she should. I’m sure that Johnson did nothing dishonest, nor did Lee.” But this came out automatically; she seemed to be making a series of prepared responses, her mind on something else.

“I didn’t know the Governor was here the night Rufus died.”

“Oh yes, we had a nice chat. He is a good friend, you know, as well as our lawyer.”

“He told Mrs. Goldmountain that he and Rufus quarreled that night, about the business of those companies.”

Mrs. Rhodes frowned, “Ida Goldmountain should show better sense,” she said sharply. “Yes, they had a disagreement. Over what I don’t know; it took place upstairs, in Rufus’s room.”

“Did the police know this?”

“That Johnson was here? Oh yes, both Verbena and I told them when we were questioned as to who was in the house.”

“Did they know that the Governor went upstairs to talk to Rufus, alone? That they quarreled?”

She looked at me coldly, with sudden dislike. “Why, I don’t know,” she said. “The police didn’t ask me and I don’t remember having volunteered any information. I am so used to having things misunderstood,” she said and her voice was hard.

“I’m sure they must know,” I said thoughtfully, trying to figure out Winters: why had he kept this piece of information secret? Not only from me but from the official report given to the newspapers.

“Besides,” she said, “the case ended when Rufus killed himself. There was no need to involve one’s friends any more than was necessary. I appreciated Johnson’s kindness in coming to see me his first night in Washington, before he was to take his seat. If I were you,” and she looked at me with her clear onyx eyes, unmarked by age or disaster, “I would say nothing about Johnson’s exchange with Rufus.”

“I’ll have no occasion to, yet,” I said, quite as cool as the old lady. “In any case, I’m not the person to silence. Mrs. Goldmountain is. She’s the informer.”

“That fool!” Mrs. Rhodes exploded.

“Fool or not, she’s given us a new angle on the case.”

“Case? what case?”

“On who killed your husband, Mrs. Rhodes, and who killed Rufus Hollister.”

She sat back in her chair, “You’re mad,” she said in a low voice. “It’s all over. The police are satisfied. Leave it alone,” her voice was harshly urgent.

“But the police aren’t satisfied,” I said, and this was a big and dangerous guess. “They know as well as you and I that Rufus was killed; they are waiting for the real murderer to make some move. So am I.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“But it’s true.”

“Even if all you say is true why do you involve yourself in it? Why not go back to New York? Why involve yourself in a world which has nothing to do with yours?”

“Because, Mrs. Rhodes, I’m already involved, because I’m in danger no matter where I go.”

“Danger? Why?”

“Because I know who the murderer is and the murderer knows that I know.” This was a crashing lie but there was no help for it.

She pushed her chair back and stood up, as though prepared to run from the room; her face was ash-gray. “You’re lying,” she said at last.

I stood up, too. From the hall I could hear a door shut and the sound of someone running upstairs. We stood looking at one another like two graven images, like gargoyles on a mediaeval tower.

Then she recovered her composure and gave a strange little laugh. “You are trying to confuse me,” she said, attempting lightness. “We all know that Rufus was the murderer and that he killed himself. Whatever argument Johnson had with him was perfectly innocent … as far as the main thing goes. Certainly the thought that Johnson killed Rufus is a ridiculous one, quite unimaginable.”

“Then why did you imagine it, Mrs. Rhodes? It never occurred to me that he did.”

She flushed, confused. “I … I was mistaken then. I was under the impression you thought Johnson was in some way involved.”

I was conscious that she had betrayed something of enormous value to me, but what I could not tell. “No,” I said. “I never thought the Governor killed Rufus but I am curious about their conversation.”

“I suspect that it is none of your business, in any case, Mr. Sargeant,” Mrs. Rhodes was herself again.

“As I pointed out, it is my business if it concerns the murder.” I could be quite as cold as she.

“And you think there is some connection?”

“Certainly. The collapse of this company has a great deal to do with the case … not only with your husband’s death but with the career of Governor Ledbetter.”

She gathered up her purse, a handkerchief, prepared to go. “I assume then you will be staying with us for quite some time, after the others leave tomorrow?” This was insulting.

“No, Mrs. Rhodes,” I said looking her straight in the eye, “I will deliver the murderer tomorrow.”

She looked at me for one long moment, quite expressionless; then in a low voice, intensely, she said, “You meddlesome fool!” and she swept out of the room.

Feeling somewhat shaken, and a little silly, I went out into the hall. A familiar perfume was in the air as I walked slowly up the stairs, wondering what to do next. There was very little chance that I would be able to unmask the murderer, much less be able to collect sufficient evidence to assure conviction.

I was tempted to forget about the whole thing.

I was surprised, when I opened the door to my room, to find Walter Langdon leaning over my desk in a most incriminating fashion. He gave a jump when he saw me.

“Oh! I … I’m awfully sorry. I came in here just a minute ago, looking for you. I wanted to borrow some typewriter paper.”

At least it could have been a match, or wanting to know the time. “There’s some in the top drawer,” I said.

He opened it and, with shaking hands, took out a few sheets. “Thanks a lot.”

“Perfectly all right.”

“Hope I can do the same for you one day.”

“Never can tell.” The sort of dialogue which insures, or used to insure, any number of Hollywood scriptwriters a secure and large income.

“Sit down,” I said.

“I really better get ready for dinner.”

“You look just fine.” He sat down in the chair at the desk; I sat on the foot of the bed, legs crossed in a most nonchalant fashion. “Are you satisfied with the way things turned out?”

He looked puzzled. “You mean the murders?”

I caught that. “So you think Rufus was murdered too?”

“No, he killed himself, didn’t he? That’s what the police seem to think.”

“Why did you say ‘murders’?”

“A slip of the tongue. Two deaths is what I meant.” He was perfectly calm.

“But I take it you think Rufus was murdered?”

“You take it wrong, Sargeant,” said Langdon. “I see no reason to think Rufus might have been killed. It makes perfect sense the way it is. I think you should leave it alone.” The second time I had been advised, in exactly those words, to keep my nose clean. I was beginning to feel that a monstrous cabal had been formed to misguide me.

“You don’t have much of the newspaperman in you, Langdon,” I said in the hearty tone of a stock company actor in The Front Page.

“I’m not really one,” said Langdon with a touch of frost in his voice. “I just do occasional articles. I’m mainly interested in the novel.”

I have all the pseudo-intellectual’s loathing of those who have dedicated themselves, no matter how sincerely and competently, to art … a form of envy, I suppose, which becomes contempt if they fail. Langdon had all the earmarks of a potential disaster.

“Even so you should be more interested in this sort of thing. Have you decided what you’re going to write about for your magazine?”

He nodded. “I’m working on it now, that’s why I needed the paper. I want to have a first draft ready by the time I get back to the office, tomorrow afternoon.”

“What line are you taking?”

“Oh, the implications of a political murder … I use the Rhodes thing as a point of departure, if you know what I mean.”

I knew only too well: the Diachotomy of Murder or The Theology of Crisis in Reaction. It would be great fun to read, I decided grimly. “Then you’ll be taking the noon train with Ellen?” This was a guess, but perfectly logical.

“Yes, as a matter of fact, we are going back together.”

“She’s quite something isn’t she?”

Langdon nodded seriously. “She certainly is.”

“Are you still engaged to her?”

“Oh, it wasn’t a formal engagement.”

“I’m sure of that; they never are.”

Langdon blushed. “She … she’s very promiscuous, isn’t she?”

“Yes, Walter, she is,” I said in the tone of a Scoutmaster explaining to a new tenderfoot the parts of the body and their uses.

“I didn’t think it was so bad until we went out to Chevy Chase and she ducked off with a Marine …”

“She’s been known to complete a seduction in ten minutes.”

“Well, this took a lot longer. I was mad as hell at her but she told me it was none of my business, that she thought the Marine much too nice-looking to let go; it was then I caught on.”

“You didn’t really care about her that much, did you?” I was curious; both Ellen and I had thought him a fool.

He scratched his sandy hair in a bumpkin manner. “Not really. I never ran into anything quite like her before and I guess I was taken in for a little bit.”

“The fact she now has a million dollars, as well as an uninhibited technique, might make her irresistible to an American boy.”

“Not this boy.” But I detected a wistful note; she had used him up, as it were. I wondered what would become of her now that she was rich; there were bound to be operators cleverer than she in the world, and what a ride they could take her for. Well, it was no business of mine.

“Let me see what you write for the Advanceguard, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all. I’d like your advice.” Then he left the room.

I puttered about the room, getting ready for dinner, the last dinner in this house. I packed my bag, slowly, reluctantly, aware that the puzzle was incomplete and would doubtless remain so now, forever. I cursed my ill luck, my slow brain, the craft of my opponent: for some time now I had regarded the killer as a malicious personal opponent whose delight it was to torment me.

I opened my desk to see if there were any letters or old socks in the drawers. There was nothing. Only a few sheets of typewriter paper. On one of them I had made some elaborate doodles; at the center of the largest decoration I had written “paper chase” in old English type.

Paper chase. I thought of Mrs. Rhodes. Something I had heard that day came back to me; something I had known all along appeared in a new way. Unexpectedly every piece fell into place.

And I knew who had killed Senator Rhodes, and Rufus Hollister.

4

It was evident from the happy faces at table that night that this was to be our last supper together. No one was sorry that the ghastly time was finally over. I was giddy with triumph and I had a difficult time not showing it. My exuberance was doubtless attributed to our coming freedom. We were like prisoners on the eve of parole.

I took great care not to betray myself. I made no reference all that evening to the case; I indicated in no way that I had completed the picture puzzle. I even refrained from staring too long at the killer, who was most serene, doubtless confident that the whole desperate gamble had been won at last.

Winters was noticeable by his absence. There had been some talk that he would come by to say farewell but he did not, out of shame at facing me, I decided, complacent in my victory, keyed up to an extraordinary pitch both by my discovery and by the danger which attended it.

I lacked evidence, of course, but when one knows a problem’s answer its component parts can be deduced and proved, by working backwards. I had, I was sure, the means of proving what I knew.

After dinner, we were joined in the drawing room by Johnson Ledbetter and Elmer Bush. They came in out of the black winter night, their faces red from cold, bringing cold air with them.

Their entrance depressed, somewhat, the gala mood of the guests.

Mrs. Rhodes poured us coffee. Cups were handed about. The discredited statesman took bourbon. His journalistic ally did the same. They sat talking by the fire to Mrs. Rhodes, Roger Pomeroy and Verbena Pruitt, leaving the women and children to amuse themselves. We amused ourselves, even though I was anxious to join the circle by the fire.

Ellen and Camilla fell to wrangling in a most sisterly fashion while Langdon and I exchanged weighty opinions on the state of contemporary letters (“decadent”).

After an hour of this, everyone shifted positions, as often happens with a group in civilized society: a spontaneous rearrangement of the elements to distribute the boredom more democratically.

I ended up with Ledbetter and Elmer and Verbena Pruitt at the fireplace.

“It has become,” said Ledbetter slowly, “A Party Issue.”

“In which case you’re bound to win,” said Verbena comfortably. “I have word that the White House intends to intervene.”

“But when? When?” His voice rose querulously.

“His hands are tied. You know how he feels about interfering in legislative problems. Yet I have it on the highest, the very highest, authority that he intends to act before the week is over. One word from him and the Party will support you.”

“Meanwhile I undergo martyrdom.”

“It may turn out to be political Capital,” said Elmer Bush, nodding happily, pleased to be involved in such high and dirty politics.

The Senator-Designate snorted. He looked at the end of his rope; he was also getting tight. “What a mess it is, Grace,” he said, turning with a sigh to Mrs. Rhodes. She smiled and patted his hand.

“It won’t last much longer,” she said softly.

“I hope you’re right.” I was surprised by this sudden gentle exchange; could they have been … but it was to far-fetched.

I was suddenly tempted to drop the whole thing; to retire from the scene with the secret satisfaction of having solved a case which, all things considered, had proven to be damned near insoluble.

I looked at the murderer thoughtfully, aware, disagreeably, of my own power. I have few sadistic impulses and I had no chivalrous love for any of the dead. I resolved at that moment to keep my information to myself.

“The point I have been making continually,” said Ledbetter, turning on the professional political voice which became him so well, if you happen to like politicians of the old school, “is that my connection with the company was perfectly legal, that Rufus and Lee between them ran it and that all I did was have my office occasionally handle their legal work for them. I had no other connection with it.”

“But why, Senator, if you had so little to do with the companies, did you have an equal share with Mr. Rhodes?” I was surprised at my own boldness; hostile eyes were turned upon me.

“I left all that to them, young man. Instead of paying me a legal fee, they gave me stock. I paid very little attention to what they were doing. I will not say that I was used by Lee, my oldest and dearest friend, but I will say that Rufus Hollister was a most sinister figure. I am now engaged in investigating, at considerable expense, his business dealing for the past fifteen years, since he came to Washington. It will make unsavory reading, sir, most unsavory.”

Elmer Bush nodded. “There is already enough proof at hand to show that Hollister was involved, on his own, in a number of rackets which would completely discredit him.”

“While my own record is …” An open book, I murmured to myself, “an open book,” said Johnson Ledbetter, scowling honestly. “I was used by him. I am being used now by politicians in an effort to discredit not only me but the Party. We will win, though,” he added, his voice solemn, like a keynoter at a convention.

“You should’ve shown more sense,” said Verbena sharply. Mrs. Rhodes excused herself aware, doubtless, that her husband’s memory might be impugned. It was. “Lee was always getting involved in some get-rich-quick scheme and though he was perfectly honest he couldn’t resist a deal, no matter how shady, if it looked like a million dollars might be made. The fact that he never made a cent on these things is proof enough that he was a dupe himself, though he thought he was a financial genius.”

“Where did he make that three and a half million he left in his will?” I asked, always practical.

“Inherited,” said Verbena crisply.

This was interesting; I wondered why I had never thought before to inquire into the source of the Rhodes fortune. “One thing which puzzles me, though,” I said, in a very humble way, “is why, if Senator Rhodes was perfectly innocent in this deal, did he go out of his way to arrange it so that Rufus Hollister would be solely responsible for the company’s illegality?”

“How,” said Ledbetter, “do we know that Lee did? We have only Hollister’s word for it, in that farewell note of his.”

“We have also those documents which were sent to me anonymously.”

“Had they been executed?”

“No, sir, they had not, but the fact that they had been drawn up indicated that someone expected to use them in case the various deals were ever made public; the papers provided a perfect out for Rhodes.” And for you, I added to myself.

“But there is no proof that either Lee or myself drew up those documents, remember that,” said Ledbetter, and I saw quite clearly the direction his defense would take.

“By the way,” I asked, “what was his attitude the other night when you talked to him, before he died?”

The Senator-Designate was startled.

Verbena snorted angrily. “How did you know Johnson was here?”

“It’s no secret, is it?”

“At the moment, yes,” said Verbena and she looked like an angry mountain before an eruption.

“You will do me a great favor by saying nothing about that visit in the press, my boy,” said Ledbetter with an attempt at good-fellowship.

“I’m sure Pete wouldn’t think of it,” said Elmer, warningly: reminding me that he was still author of the Globe’s main feature: “America’s New York,” and of considerable influence with the editor.

“I have no intention of printing any of this, Senator,” I said earnestly. “My only interest was in the murder. Politics is out of my line. I was only curious, that’s all. I mean you were the last person to see Rufus alive.”

“This is, then, off the record,” said Ledbetter heavily. “Rufus Hollister threatened me, threatened to blackmail me. I told him to do his worst. He said he would, that he would cause a scandal even if it would involve him. I am afraid that we parted enemies, never to meet again in this world.” There was a long silence.

I was suddenly weary of the whole business, sleepy, too.

Mrs. Rhodes returned and the company rearranged itself like musical chairs. I refused a drink, was given coffee, but it did not wake me up. Yawning widely behind my hand, I excused myself and went up to bed.

The case was solved and I had the satisfaction not only of having solved it but also of denying myself the glory of announcing my solution to the world, to the accompaniment of fame and glory. I was quite pleased with myself.

When I got to my room, I went straight to the bathroom to brush my teeth. I was so exhausted that I had trouble keeping awake. When I finished I sat down for a moment on the toilet seat to rest. I awoke suddenly to find that my head had fallen with a crack against the washbasin. I had gone to sleep.

Rubbing my eyes, I got to my feet and went into the bedroom. Each step I took fatigued me. I wondered if I might be ill, if I’d caught Camilla Pomeroy’s virus. I fell across the bed. I was ill. I tried to sit up but the effort was too great. My hands and feet were ice-cold and I felt chill waves engulf my body.

Clouded as my brain was, on the verge of unconsciousness, I realized that I had been poisoned. I was just able to knock the telephone off its hook before I passed out.