Death Before Bedtime

CHAPTER TWO

1

I was interviewed at four-twenty-seven in the morning by the Police Lieutenant who seemed nearly as weary as the rest of us.

“Full name,” he mumbled mechanically. A plain-clothes man took down my testimony. The three of us sat at one end of the dining-room table by the light of two candelabras: the candles were half-burned away.

“Peter Cutler Sargeant II.”

“Age?”

“Twenty-nine.”

“Occupation?”

“Public relations.”

“By whom employed.”

“Myself.”

“Residence?”

“120 Christopher Street, New York City.”

“How long have you known Senator Rhodes?”

“About one day.”

“How did you happen to know him?”

“I was hired to handle his publicity. I only got here today … yesterday morning.”

“What time did you come to the house?”

“About four-thirty in the afternoon.”

“Did you go to the study at any time?”

“Not until after dinner, when the Senator asked me to join him there.”

The Lieutenant opened his eyes and looked interested. His voice lost its official mechanical tone. “What time did you leave?”

“Around one-thirty, I guess … just before he was killed.”

“Where were you when he was killed?”

“I went back downstairs … for a drink. I ran into Miss Pruitt and we talked for a bit … she had left her cigarettes or something in the living room … then I went upstairs. I was on the first landing when it happened; I was talking to Mr. Hollister.”

“About what?”

“About what? oh … well, I don’t remember. I think I’d just met him when it happened. We were both knocked down, and the lights went out.”

“How did the Senator seem when you were with him?”

“I’m afraid I didn’t know him well enough to say … I mean I don’t know what he was like ordinarily. I got the impression that he was worried about something. I presumed it had to do with his announcement on Friday.”

“At the Margarine Council?”

I nodded. The Lieutenant lit a cigarette. What a wonderful break it was for him, I thought. This was going to be one of the most publicized cases in years. As a matter of fact, I was already trying to figure out some angle on how I might be able to cash in on it since my big job had been, to employ an apt phrase, blown to bits at the same time as my client. I was aware that I could get quite a price from my old newspaper the New York Globe if I could do a series of pieces on the murder, the inside story. I should have to cultivate the police, though.

“The Senator had many enemies,” I volunteered.

“How do you know?” The Lieutenant was properly skeptical. “I thought you only met him yesterday.”

“That’s true but from what he told me just before he was murdered, I should say that almost any one of a million people might have killed him.”

“Why?”

“He was going to run for President.”

“So?”

“He was being backed by some very shady characters.”

“Names and addresses,” the Lieutenant was obviously missing the point.

“I’m afraid it’s not that simple,” I said coolly. “I don’t want to tangle with them and I don’t expect you do either. Besides, I’m sure they didn’t have anything to do with this murder … directly at least. The point is that their enemies might have wanted to do away with the Senator for the good of the country.”

“I don’t follow you. If we don’t know who they are then how are we going to know who their enemies are, the ones who might want to kill Senator Rhodes?” The Lieutenant was not taking me very seriously, I decided, and I took this as a tribute to the stability of our country … the whole idea of a political murder, an assassination on ideological grounds, seemed like complete nonsense to him. The Presidents who had been killed in the past were all victims of crackpots, not of political plots. I decided to hold back my theories on political murder until I had a contract from the Globe safely in my pocket. In the meantime I had to be plausible.

“Let’s put it this way,” I said, speaking earnestly, as glibly as possible. “A lot of people didn’t like the idea of a man like Rhodes becoming President. One of them, a crackpot maybe, might have got an idea that the best way to handle the situation would be to kill the Senator before the convention. For instance, right now, in this house, I should say there are four out-and-out political enemies of the Senator.”

This had some effect. The Lieutenant stifled a yawn and sat up very straight. “Who are they?”

“Langdon, the newspaperman … he’s a young fellow, very liberal, he was sent here to write an attack on Rhodes for the Advanceguard Magazine. He couldn’t have been more anti-Rhodes; and if he’d found out half as much as I did this evening he might have, for patriotic reasons, eased the Senator across the shining river.”

“Across where?”

“Killed him. Then Miss Pruitt, though she’s an old friend, was opposed to his running for President. Pomeroy, I gather, was a political enemy of Rhodes back in Talisman City and, finally, after my little talk with Rhodes this morning I was tempted to do him in myself.”

“That’s all very interesting,” said the Lieutenant mildly. “But since you refuse to tell us who the Senator’s supporters were, I’m afraid you aren’t much help to this investigation. Please don’t leave the house until further notice.” And I was dismissed.

In the drawing room I found Walter Langdon and the servants. All the others had been interviewed and had gone to bed. He looked haggard and pale and I felt a little guilty as I said good night, recalling the dark hints I had made to the Lieutenant … but they had been necessary. I was sure of that. This was not an ordinary murder … presuming that any murder could be called ordinary. I was both excited and frightened by the possibilities. Just as I got to the first landing, the lights came on again and, thinking of Rufus Hollister, I went to my room.

2

I was called for lunch at noon by the butler who volunteered the information that no one had got up for breakfast except Mrs. Rhodes who was now making arrangements for the Senator’s burial at Arlington. I was also informed that the police were still in the house and that the street was crowded with newspapermen and sightseers.

Ellen greeted me cheerily in the drawing room. Wan winter sunlight shone in the room. All the ladies except Miss Pruitt, brave in rose, wore black. Everyone looked grim.

“Come join the wake,” said Ellen in a low voice, pulling me over to one of the French windows.

“Has anything happened?” I asked, looking about the room for Mrs. Rhodes. She had not returned.

“Among other things, this,” and Ellen gestured at the crowd of newspapermen in the street below. Several police stood guard.

“Where is your mother?” I asked, as we stepped back out of the window; I had caught a glimpse of a camera being trained on us.

“She’s still with the undertaker, I think. She should be here for lunch. There’s to be a service tomorrow morning at the Cathedral; then to Arlington.” She was excited I could see … I looked for some trace of sorrow in her face but there was none: only excitement, and perhaps unease … a lot of skeletons were going to be rattled in several closets before this case was done. I picked up a newspaper and read, on the front page, how “Statesman Meets Violent End,” complete with a photograph of the late politico and an inset of the house with a gaping hole in it where the library had been. “I had no idea it made such a hole,” I said, handing Ellen the paper. She put it back on the table: everyone had read it, I gathered.

“Nobody’s been allowed to go in the study yet … not even Mother or me. Rufus is raising hell because he says there are important papers there.”

Exactly on cue, Rufus appeared in the doorway, his owl face peevish and his tweed suit looking as though he’d slept in it. He went straight to Ellen. “Have you any idea when your mother will be back?”

“I thought she’d be here by lunchtime. She said she would be finished in a few hours with the people at the Cathedral.”

“We must do something about the files,” said Rufus, looking at me nervously, as though unwilling to be more explicit.

“Files?” said the statesman’s daughter; in political matters she was even more at sea than usual. Only one or two things really interested her … affairs of state left her cool and confused.

“Yes, yes,” said Rufus impatiently. “All your father’s supporters are listed in the secret files … along with their contributions: not that there is anything illegal going on,” he chuckled weakly, “but if those names fell into the hands of our political enemies.…” He moaned softly; then the doors to the dining room were thrown open and we went in to lunch.

I was surprised, as we took our seats, to find that Lieutenant Winters was also at the table. Needless to say, his presence threw something of a pall over what was, to begin with, a very gloomy group. The Lieutenant seemed calm, however, and I wondered whether or not it was usual for a police officer to dine with suspects. The fact that he was sitting next to Ellen I had duly noted and registered: he was no fool. She was susceptible and she was indiscreet. If he managed everything properly, he would know all he needed to know about the house of Rhodes in a few hours, pleasant hours.

“I can hardly believe this terrible thing has happened,” said a rather nasal voice in my ear. I turned and saw for the first time that Mrs. Pomeroy was seated on my left. Her eyes were red and puffy and, from the sound of her voice, she had either been weeping or else she was catching a bad cold. As it turned out she had a touch of the grippe.

“Our room was next to the Senator’s study,” she said, sniffing dolefully, her red eyes turned on me for sympathy. “Well, after this terrible thing went off the whole second floor was freezing cold, especially our room. I had had a slight cold when we left Talisman City … well, after last night’s terrible event I now have the grippe. My temperature just before lunch was a hundred point three.”

I suggested that she drink lemon juice in a glass of hot water and go to bed until the fever was over, but she wasn’t much interested in my homely remedies. “It has been,” she said in a low voice, “a shattering experience.”

Especially for the Senator, I wanted to add but decided not to. Across the table Ellen was deep in conversation with Lieutenant Winters. Walter Langdon, her next fiancé (or so I had thought), seemed forgotten; he was talking to Verbena Pruitt.

“You must have been very fond of Senator Rhodes,” I said.

Mrs. Pomeroy nodded. “Oh, there were some little frictions between him and my husband … you know how men are, so touchy, concerned with trifles … but my own friendship with the Senator was, well, very real … and for many, many years.” Something in her voice made me not only believe everything she was saying but, more important, suggested a sudden, unexpected possibility. I looked at her curiously.

“How long had you known the Senator?” I asked gently.

“All my life,” she said. “I was born in Talisman City, you know; Roger of course only moved there from Michigan about fifteen years ago.”

“And you were married fifteen years ago?”

She giggled; then she sniffled and sneezed. I looked away until she had pulled herself together. “Not quite fifteen years ago,” she said archly.

“You should do something about that cold.”

“I’m taking pills … except for occasional political differences our families have been very very close all these years.”

“What were those differences?”

“Oh, one thing and another.…” She gestured vaguely. “Political. My husband was for Roosevelt … that makes quite a difference, you know, out where we come from, that is. I was always for Dewey … so distinguished-looking, and so young. I think we need a young President, don’t you?” I said that I hadn’t given the question much thought. I was growing more and more suspicious, however; yet there seemed no way to find out what I wanted to know … unless Ellen knew, which was not likely. If Mrs. Pomeroy had been the Senator’s mistress years ago, the fact would probably not have been well known by the Senator’s family. I would have to find out, though. Mrs. Pomeroy despite her red eyes and silly manner was a very good-looking woman. If a man like Pomeroy should have a jealous nature.… An elaborate plot began to unwind in my head.

“Did you and Mr. Pomeroy visit here often?” I asked, the roast beef on my plate getting cold as I conducted my investigation.

She shook her head. “As a matter of fact we usually stay at the Mayflower and the Senator joins us for lunch over there.”

“This is the first time you’ve stayed here in the house then?”

She nodded; for a moment her serene features seemed agitated, as though she suspected that I was questioning her for other than polite reasons. Quickly I began to gabble about sure-fire cures for head colds and the crisis passed.

We were given a little speech over the fingerbowls by Lieutenant Winters. He was as unlike a policeman as any man I’ve ever known and he was obviously delighted with the whole business … no matter what happened he was going to get a good deal of publicity; he was also going to meet a number of very important people who might do him some good one day. The murder of the Senator involved, in a sense, everyone in Washington political life, from the White House down to the most confused officeholder. He addressed us quietly, as though he were a fellow guest, anxious to make a good impression.

“I may as well admit quite frankly, ladies and gentlemen, that we are baffled. We haven’t the slightest idea who murdered Senator Rhodes.” This unusual admission on the part of someone in authority made a considerable impression. I almost expected a polite round of applause … only the presence of death in the house prevented his audience from showing their pleasure at his originality.

“We are fairly confident that the murderer or murderers are, if you will pardon me, in the house at this time … but even of that we’re not entirely sure. We do know that only someone who knew the Senator’s habits fairly well could have contrived the … trap which worked so successfully. It would also seem that whoever did the murder could not have planned it too far in advance because the 5-X explosive was brought to the house only yesterday by Mr. Pomeroy. Four paper cartons of 5-X were kept in Mr. Pomeroy’s room. Mr. Pomeroy discussed the new explosive with the Senator yesterday morning at the Senate Office Building in the presence of Mr. Hollister. He then joined Mrs. Pomeroy, Mr. Langdon, Miss Pruitt, Mrs. Rhodes and Miss Rhodes here in the house and there was, I am told, more talk of the new explosive. In short, all the guests, with the exception of Mr. Sargeant, knew about the 5-X, knew that Mr. Pomeroy had four cartons of it in his room, cartons which were to have been turned over to the army this afternoon with Senator Rhodes’ recommendation. The cartons were kept in a special fireproof bag which was locked. Some time between four in the afternoon, when Mr. Pomeroy placed the bag in his closet, and one-thirty-six the next morning when Senator Rhodes lit the fire in his study, the murderer went to Mr. Pomeroy’s room, broke the lock on the bag and took out a single container which he then placed in the fireplace of the study. I believe that whoever did this must have known something about explosives because, had he taken all four and put them in the fireplace, the house would have been wrecked and the murderer killed along with everyone else.” The Lieutenant paused. All eyes were upon him. The room was silent except for the rather heavy breathing of Mrs. Pomeroy beside me, struggling with her cold.

“Now,” said the Lieutenant, with a juvenile actor’s smile, “I realize that you people are very busy. Your affairs are very important to the country and the Department wants to do everything in its power to make this investigation as easy as possible for you. Unfortunately, until we have a clearer idea of what we’re up against, you will have to be inconvenienced to the extent of remaining in this house for at least a week.” There was an indignant murmur; the official soft soap forgotten.

“Do you realize, young man,” said Miss Pruitt, “that a national election is coming up? that I have a million things to do in the next few weeks?”

“I certainly do, Miss Pruitt. Everyone knows how important your work is but we’re all caught in the law. The Department, however, has agreed to allow you ladies and gentlemen to leave the house on urgent business, on condition that we always know where you are. Mrs. Rhodes has kindly consented to let us keep you here in the house for the next few days so that you’ll be available for questioning. I realize how inconvenient this must be but those are my orders.” And the law took command. There were a few more complaints but the comparative freedom allowed us put everyone in a better mood. The Lieutenant then permitted a recess until five o’clock, at which time there would be more questioning. Like children we trooped out of the dining room.

Verbena Pruitt was the first to leave and, from the grim look on her face, I was quite sure that she would be in touch with the White House before many minutes had passed: after all she was, in a sense, The American Woman. Mr. Pomeroy murmured something to his wife and also left. Walter Langdon went upstairs and Rufus Hollister tangled with the Lieutenant in my presence.

“Lieutenant, you must let me get certain papers out of the Senator’s file. It’s extremely urgent, as I’ve said before.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Hollister, but those papers are all being gone over by the Department. There’s nothing I can do about it.”

“I don’t think you realize how serious this is, Lieutenant,” said Hollister, flushing angrily. “The papers I want have nothing to do with the murder … I swear to you they don’t. They involve, however, certain people of the greatest importance—the leaders of this country—and they were meant only for the Senator’s eyes.”

“We’re not politicians,” said the Lieutenant quietly … a little inaccurately, I thought. “We’re not interested in the political implications of all this. Those papers are being gone over by men who are looking for only one thing: clues to the murder of Senator Rhodes. I don’t need to tell you that they are discreet men. In any case, all the papers will be returned to your office in a day or two.”

“You don’t understand,” said Rufus furiously, but there was very little he could say: the Lieutenant’s attitude was perfectly reasonable, and legal. “I shall talk to the District Commissioners about this,” he said, finally; then he was gone. The Lieutenant sighed. I looked about me and saw that we were the only two left in the room. Ellen had quietly vanished … in pursuit of Walter Langdon, I presumed. The other policemen were all upstairs in the study. In the dining room behind us, the servants were cleaning up.

“You’ve got your work cut out for you,” I said sympathetically.

He nodded. “It’s like doing a tightrope act. Do you realize the influence this gang has? I don’t dare offend any of them.”

“Or dare make a mistake.”

“We don’t make mistakes,” said the Lieutenant, suddenly stuffy, a policeman after all in spite of his college manners and Grecian profile.

“I might be able to help you,” I said, going off on another tack: one which would interest him. He didn’t react quite the way I would have liked, though.

“Why do you want to do that?” He was suspicious. It gave me quite a turn to realize that this man regarded me as a possible murderer.

“Money,” I said callously. Self-interest makes beasts of us all … and all men understand self-interest: it is the most plausible of motives, the one which is seldom ever questioned.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I would like very much to be the first to know who did the murder because I could then get quite a large sum of money from my old newspaper the New York Globe for an exclusive story on the murder.”

“I thought you were in public relations.”

“Before that I was assistant drama critic on the Globe. You may recall I was the one who did the story on the murder of Ella Sutton, the ballerina, last year. I made a good deal out of that particular story.”

“I remember.” I couldn’t tell how he was reacting. Then: “Just how do you think you can help us?”

“Through the family,” I said glibly. “Through Ellen Rhodes. You see we used to be engaged. I can find out quickly a lot of things you people might never know.”

“Such as?”

“What’s really going on. What the Senator’s true relationships were with this gang. By an odd coincidence almost everyone here disliked him, or had reason to.”

“Except you?”

I was getting nowhere; I was also getting rather put out with this decorative arm of the law. “Except me. No, I didn’t murder the old goat so that I could marry his daughter and get all his money. Having sat next to her at lunch you are probably quite aware of Miss Rhodes’ true nature.”

Against his will, the Lieutenant grinned. I had made a chink in the official mask. I charged ahead. “We’re old friends, that’s all, Ellen and I. I have a hunch she knows a good deal about this and I can find out what she knows, quickly.”

“All just for a newspaper story?”

“Just!” I was genuinely outraged. “Yes,” I said, more calmly, “just for a newspaper story, for the money and the publicity.”

“We’re not supposed to work with the press … not like this, at this stage of an investigation.”

“On the other hand, I’m not just the press either.”

“I’ll say you’re not. You’re a murder suspect.”

This was putting it too coldly, I thought. I shrugged and turned away, “In that case, you’ll get no coöperation from me, Lieutenant. What I do know I’ll keep to myself.”

“What’s the deal?” He was abrupt.

“I want to know what’s going on. In exchange I’ll find out things for you … family skeletons. On top of that, remember the pieces I’ll do for the Globe’ll be widely reprinted and you, Lieutenant Winters, will be getting a good deal of attention.”

“What do you know?” I had won the first round.

“Pomeroy,” I said. There was no need to explain further: we understood each other.

“Why Pomeroy?”

“Old enemy. The Senator was blackmailing him over that 5-X … at least that’s my guess. Rhodes wanted to be paid off either in cash or votes, probably the last. Pomeroy’s a big gun in their state.”

“How did you find this out?”

“I know a little about politics,” I said quietly; as a matter of fact I had figured out the whole plot at lunch. I didn’t care to admit, at this point however, that I was relying rather heavily on intuition and a few chance remarks dropped my way the day before by Rufus Hollister.

The Lieutenant extended to me his first confidence. “That’s one way of looking at it,” he said. “But the fact is the Senator refused yesterday to recommend Pomeroy to the Defense Department … Pomeroy admitted as much.”

“I wonder, though, why the Senator’s recommendation should be so important?” I asked, a little puzzled.

“Pomeroy was in bad with the Defense Department. They canceled his contract last month.”

I nodded as if I knew all this; actually it was a surprise; the first real lead. “I knew,” I lied, “that he hoped his 5-X would put him back into business again.”

“It’s not very clear, though,” said the Lieutenant sadly, moving over to the window which overlooked the street. Several newspapermen were trying to get past the guards. Most of the crowd, however, had gone on about their business. “Why would Pomeroy want to kill the one man who could help him get his contract?”

“Isn’t revenge one of the usual motives? along with greed and lust?”

“It’s a little extreme … and obvious, too obvious.” It was the first time that I had ever heard a member of any police department maintain that anything was too obvious: as a rule they jump wildly, and often safely, to the first solution that offers itself. This was a bright boy, I decided; I would have to handle myself very carefully around him.

“One other thing,” I said, playing my only card.

“What’s that?”

“Mrs. Pomeroy. I have an idea, a hunch.”

“That what?”

“That she and the old boy were carrying on, a long time ago. It would complete the revenge motive wouldn’t it? Not only was Pomeroy angry about losing his contract but he also had an old grudge against the Senator because of something which had happened even before Pomeroy ever met his wife.”

“Where’d you find all this out?”

“Deduction, I’m afraid. No evidence. At lunch today she made several remarks which started me thinking, that’s all. I found out that she’d known the Senator all her life, that she was very fond of him … really so … that Pomeroy, as we know, was not; that Pomeroy came to the state only about fifteen years ago from Michigan and about the same time, married the Senator’s old friend, Mrs. P.”

“It’ll take a good deal of investigating to check on this.”

“I know some short cuts.”

“We could use them.”

“You do think Pomeroy killed the Senator, don’t you?”

The Lieutenant nodded, “I think he did.”

3

After my session with Winters, I went upstairs and telephoned my office in New York. My secretary, a noble woman in middle life named Miss Flynn, admitted that she had been concerned about me. She gave me a quick report on the progress of my other clients: a hat company, three television actresses of the second rank, a comedian of the first rank, a society lady of mysterious origin but well-charted future, and a small but rich dog-food concern. All of my clients seemed reasonably pleased and the few problems which had arisen in my absence were settled over the phone with Miss Flynn. “I trust you will soon return to New York now that your client Senator Rhodes has been Gathered Up,” said Miss Flynn ceremoniously.

“As soon as the police let us go,” I said. “We’re all in quite a spot.”

“Washington!” said Miss Flynn with a note of disgust: next to Hollywood she regarded it as the end, the absolute moral end of a country which was rapidly degenerating into something Roman and horrid.

After I had finished with Miss Flynn, I called my old editor at the Globe and I managed to extort a considerable sum for a series of articles on the death of Senator Rhodes. I need not now recall the details of this transaction; enough to say that I did pretty well, considering the depressed state of the dollar.

My business over, I strolled downstairs to the second floor. At one end of the corridor, on the left, was the blanketed and guarded entrance to the study. Three bedrooms opened off that corridor. The one nearest the study was occupied by the Pomeroys. Across from it was Walter Langdon’s and, next to his, was Rufus Hollister’s room. To the right of the landing was another hall with four bedrooms opening off it. They were the rooms, I knew, of Senator Rhodes, of Mrs. Rhodes, of Ellen and Miss Pruitt. My room on the third floor was definitely in the outfield, up where the servants lived. On an impulse I went to Ellen’s room and opened the door, without knocking.

Had I been half an hour later, I should probably have witnessed as fine a display of carnality as our Puritan country has to offer; happily, for my own modesty, I found Walter Langdon and Ellen still clothed in spite of a steaming embrace on the bed which broke abruptly when they heard me. Langdon leaped to his feet like a track star warming up for the high hurdles; Ellen, an old hand at this sort of discovery, sat up more slowly and straightened her hair. “A pin just stabbed me in the back of the neck,” she announced irritably, rubbing her neck. “Why the hell don’t you knock?” Then, before I could answer she turned to Langdon angrily and said, “I thought you said you locked the door?”

“I … I thought I did. I guess I turned the key over in the lock.” He was blushing furiously and I could see that my ex-fiancé had aroused him. Embarrassed he trotted into the bathroom and slammed the door behind him.

“A cooling-off period at this point in an affair is often considered very sound,” I said smoothly. “It gives both parties an opportunity to determine whether or not their needs can be served only through sin.”

“Oh, shut up! Where do you think you are? in a railroad station? We were just talking, that’s all … and now look what you’ve done.”

“What have I done?”

“Embarrassed the poor little thing to death. It may take me days to get him back to where I had him before you came in.”

“He’s not that much of a baby,” I said. “And your methods are foolproof anyway.”

“Hell!” said Ellen, in a mood of complete disgust and dejection.

“Anyway I want to talk to you.”

“What about?”

Before I could answer, Langdon came back into the bedroom noticeably soothed. “I’ll see you later,” he said calmly and left the room.

“Now look what you’ve done!”

“You can finish your dirty work tonight,” I said. “I want to talk to you about the murder.”

“Well, what about it?” She was still angry. She went over to her dressing table and sat down, repairing her blurred make-up. I ambled about the room, looking at the bookcase full of girls’ stories and passionate adult novels, at the rather unfeminine décor.

“Was this always your room?”

She nodded. “Up until I got married it was.”

“Where did you go after the marriage was annulled?”

“To a finishing school in New York. When I was thrown out of that, I stayed in New York.…”

“On a liberal allowance.”

“Depends on your idea of liberal; now what about the murder?”

“They think, the police think, Pomeroy did it?”

“So?”

“Did he?”

“How should I know? Why don’t you ask him?”

“I thought you said you knew who did it.”

She laughed, “Did I say that? I must’ve been lit … or maybe you were lit … which reminds me will you push that bell over there. It’s getting near teatime and I’m developing that funny parched feeling.” I pushed the mother-of-pearl button.

“Who do you think did it?”

“My darling Peter, I’m not sure that even if I did know I would tell you. I realize that’s an unnatural way to feel about the murderer of your own father but I’m not a very natural girl, as you well know … or maybe too natural, which is about the same thing. If somebody disliked Father enough to kill him I’m not at all sure that I would interfere. I have no feeling at all about him, about my father I mean. I never forgave him for that annulment … not that I was so much in love, though I thought I was, being young and silly, but rather because he had tried to interfere with me and that’s one thing I can’t stand. Anyway he was not very lovable, as you probably gathered, and when I could get away from home I did. I still don’t know what on earth prompted me to come down here with you. I guess I was awfully high at Cambridge and it seemed like a fun idea. I regretted the whole thing the second I woke up on that train but it was too late to go back.” The butler interrupted the first serious talk I had ever had with Ellen and, by the time half a Scotch mist had given her strength to face the afternoon, she was herself again and our serious moment was over.

“What do you know about the Pomeroys?” I asked when the butler had disappeared.

“What everybody knows. They’re not that mysterious. He came to Talisman City in the late Thirties and set up a factory … I suppose he had some capital to start with … he manufactured explosives. When the war came along he made a lot of money and the factory grew very big and he grew with it, got to be quite a power politically. Then the war ended, business fell off and he lost his contract with the government, or so I was told yesterday.”

“By whom?”

“By my father.” She paused thoughtfully; then she swallowed the rest of the Scotch.

“Did he … did your father seem nervous to you?”

“You know, Peter, you’re beginning to sound like that police Lieutenant … only not as pretty.”

“I’ve got a job to do,” I said, and I explained to her about the Globe, told her that she had to help me, that I needed someone who could give me the necessary facts about the people involved.

“You’re an awfully fast operator,” she said.

“That makes two of us.”

She laughed; then she sat down beside me on the couch. “I’m afraid I’ve been away too long to be much help … besides, you know what I think or rather what I don’t think about politics.”

“I have a hunch that the murder doesn’t have anything to do with politics.”

“Your guess is as good as anybody’s,” said Ellen and she helped herself to another drink.

“What about Mrs. Pomeroy?”

“What about her?”

“What’s her relationship to your family … I gather she knew the Senator before she married Pomeroy.”

“That’s right. I remember her as a child … when I was a child, that is. She’s about twenty years older than I am, though I’m sure she’d never admit that, even to her plastic surgeon.”

“Plastic surgeon?”

“Yes, darling; she’s had her face lifted … don’t you know about those things? There are two little scars near her ears, under the hair.…”

“How was I supposed to see those?”

“I noticed them; I know all about those things. But that’s beside the point. She’s been around ever since I can remember. Her family were very close to ours … used to live right down the street, as a matter of fact: she was always coming over for dinner and things like that … usually alone. Her father was an undertaker and not very agreeable. Her mother didn’t get on very well with my mother so we seldom saw much of her.…”

“Just the daughter?”

“Yes, just Camilla. She was always organizing the Young People’s Voter Association for Father, things like that. She used to be quite a bug on politics, until she married Roger. After that we saw less of her … I suppose because Roger didn’t get on with Father.”

“I’ve got a theory that Mrs. Pomeroy and the Senator were having an affair.”

Ellen looked quite startled; then she laughed. “Well, I’ll be damned,” she said. “Now that is an idea.”

“Well, what’s wrong with it?” I don’t like my intuitions to be discredited so scornfully.

“Well, I don’t know … it just seems terribly unlikely. Father was never interested in women … as far as I know. She might have had a crush on him: that often happened when he was younger. There was always some dedicated young woman around the house doing odd jobs, but I’m sure nothing ever happened. Mother always kept a sharp eye on Father.”

“I still think something might have happened.”

“Well, what if it did?”

“It would give Pomeroy another reason for wanting to kill your father.”

“So, after fifteen years, he decides to be a jealous husband because of something which happened before he met Camilla? Not very likely, darling. Besides, he had just about all the motive he needed without dragging that sheep in. You know, Peter, I think you’re probably very romantic at heart: you think love is at the root of everything.”

“Go shove it,” I said lapsing into military talk; I was very put out with her … also with myself: the Pomeroy business didn’t make sense … it almost did but not quite. There was something a little off. The motive was there but the situation itself was all wrong. You just don’t kill a man in his own house with your own weapon right after having a perfectly open quarrel with him over business matters. I was sure that Mrs. Pomeroy was involved but, for the life of me, I couldn’t fit her in. I began, rather reluctantly, to consider other possibilities, other suspects.

“But I love it,” said Ellen cozily. “It shows the side of you I like the best.” And we tussled for a few minutes; then, recalling that in the next few hours I would have to have some sort of a story for the Globe, I disentangled myself and left Ellen to her Scotch.

As I walked down the hall, the door to Langdon’s room opened and he motioned for me to come in. The presence of the plain-clothes man at the other end of the hall, guarding the study, made me nervous: he could see everything that happened on the second floor.

Langdon’s room was like my own, only larger, American maple and chintz, that sort of thing. On the desk his typewriter was open and crumpled pieces of paper littered the floor about it: he had been composing, not too successfully.

“Say, I hope I didn’t bother you … my being in Miss Rhodes’ room like that.” He was very nervous.

“Bother me?” I laughed. “Why should it?”

“Well, your being engaged to her and all that.”

“I’m no more engaged to her than you are. She’s engaged to the whole male sex.”

“Oh.” He looked surprised; I decided he wasn’t a very worldly young man … I knew the type: serious, earnest, idealistic … the sort who have wonderful memories and who pass college examinations with great ease.

“No, I should probably apologize to you for barging in like that just as you were getting along so nicely.” He blushed. I pointed to the typewriter, to change the subject. “Are you writing your piece?”

“Well, yes and no,” he sighed. “I called New York this morning and asked them what they wanted me to do now: they sounded awfully indefinite, I mean, we never write about murders … that’s hardly our line. On the other hand, there is probably some political significance in this, maybe a great deal, and it would be quite a break for me if I could do something about it … a Huey Long kind of thing.”

“I used to work on the Globe,” I said helpfully. “But of course we handled crime differently. You’re right, I suspect, about the political angle but it won’t be easy to track down.”

“I’m sure of it,” said Langdon with sudden vehemence. “He was a dangerous man.”

“How long did it take you to figure that out?”

“One day, exactly. I’ve been here four days now … in that time I’ve found out things which, if you’d told me about them, I would never have believed possible, in this country anyway.”

“Such as?”

“Did you see the names of some of those people supporting Rhodes for President? Every fascist in the country was on that list … every witch hunter in public life was backing his candidacy.”

“You must have suspected all that when you came down here.”

Langdon sat down on the bed and lit a cigarette; I sat opposite him, at his desk. “Well, naturally, we were on to him in a way. He was a buffoon … you know what I mean: an old-fashioned, narrow-minded demagogue always talking about Americanism.… Now our specialty is doing satirical articles about reactionaries … the sort of piece that isn’t openly hostile, that allows the subject to hang himself in his own words. You have no idea how easy it is. Those people are usually well-protected, by secretaries … even by the press … people who straighten their grammar and their facts, make them seem more rational than they really are. So what I do is take down a verbatim account of some great man’s conversation, selected of course, and publish it with all the bad grammar and so on. I thought that’s what I’d be doing here but I soon found that Rhodes wasn’t really a windbag, after all. He was a clever man and hard to trap.”

“Then you found out all about his candidacy?”

“It wasn’t hard.”

“Where did you see those names? the names of the supporters?” The memory of the indignant Rufus Hollister browbeating Lieutenant Winters was still fresh in my memory.

Langdon looked embarrassed. “I … happened to find them, see them, I mean … in the Senator’s study.”

“When he wasn’t there?”

“You make it sound dishonest. No, he asked me to meet him there day before yesterday; I got there before he did and I, well …”

“Looked around.”

“I was pretty shocked.”

“It’s all over now.”

He mashed his cigarette out nervously. “Yes, and I might as well admit that I’m glad. He could never have been elected in a straight election but you can never tell what might happen in a crisis.”

“You think that gang might have invented a crisis and tried to take over the country?”

He nodded, looking me straight in the eye. “That’s just what I mean. I know it sounds very strange and all that, like a South American republic, but it could happen here …”

“As Sinclair Lewis once said.” I glanced at the sheet of paper in the typewriter. A single sentence had been written across the top: “And therefore think him as a serpent’s egg Which, hatch’d, would as his kind grow mischievous, And kill him in the shell.” Langdon was suddenly embarrassed, aware that I was reading what he had written. “Don’t look at that!” He came over quickly pulled the sheet of paper out of the typewriter. “I was just fooling around,” he said, crumpling the sheet into a tight ball and tossing it into the wastebasket.

“A quotation?” I asked.

He nodded and changed the subject. “Do you think Pomeroy did it?”

“Killed Rhodes? I suppose so. Yet if he was going to kill the Senator why would he have used his own 5-X, throwing suspicion on himself immediately?”

“Anybody could have got at the 5-X.”

“Yes but …” A new idea occurred to me, “Only Pomeroy knew how powerful one of those cartons of dynamite would be. Anybody else would be afraid of using something like that, if only because they might get blown up along with the Senator.”

Langdon frowned. “It’s a good point but …”

“But what?”

“But I’m not so sure that Pomeroy didn’t explain to us that afternoon about the 5-X, about the cartons.”

I groaned. “Are you sure he did?”

“No, not entirely … I think he did, though.”

“Yet isn’t that peculiar?” I was off on another tack. “Just why should he want to talk about his stuff in such detail?”

We talked for nearly an hour about the murder, about Ellen, about politics.… I found Langdon to be agreeable but elusive; there was something which I didn’t quite understand … he suggested an iceberg: he concealed more than he revealed and he was a very cool number besides. At last, when I had set his mind at ease about Ellen, I left him and went downstairs.

In the living room I found Ellen and Mrs. Rhodes, pale but calm; they were talking to a mountainous, craggy man who was, it turned out, Johnson Ledbetter, the Governor of Senator Rhodes’ home state.

“I flew here as quick as possible, Miss Grace,” he said with Midwestern warmth, taking Mrs. Rhodes’ hands in his, a look of dog-like devotion in his eyes.

“Lee would have appreciated it,” said Mrs. Rhodes, equal to the occasion. “You’ll say a few words at the funeral tomorrow?”

“Indeed I will, Miss Grace. This has shocked me more than I can say. The flag on the State Capitol back home is at half-mast,” he added.

As the others wandered into the room, Ellen got me aside; she was excited and her face glowed. “They’re going to read the will tomorrow, after the funeral.”

“Looks like you’re going to be a rich girl,” I said, drying my sleeve with a handkerchief … in her excitement she had slopped some of her Scotch Mist on me. “I wonder if the police have taken a look at it yet.”

She looked puzzled. “Why should they?”

“Well, darling, there’s a theory going around that people occasionally get removed from this vale of tears by overanxious heirs.”

“Don’t be silly. Anyway tomorrow is the big day. That’s why the Governor’s here.”

“To read the will?”

“Yes, he’s the family lawyer. Father made him Governor a couple of years ago. I forget just why … you know how politicians are.”

“I’m beginning to find out. By the way, have you gotten into that Langdon boy yet?”

“What an ugly question!” she beamed; then she shook her head. “I haven’t had time. Last night would have been unseemly … I mean after the murder. This afternoon I was interrupted.”

“I think he’s much too innocent for the likes of you.”

“Stop it … you don’t know about these things. He’s rather tense, I’ll admit, but they’re much the best fun … the tense ones.”

“What a bore I must’ve been.”

“As a matter of fact, you were; now that you mention it.” She chuckled; then she paused, looking at someone who had just come in. I looked over my shoulder and saw the Pomeroys in the doorway. He looked pale and weary; she, on the other hand, was quite lovely, her attack of grippe under control. The Governor greeted them cordially. Ellen left me for Walter Langdon. I joined the Governor’s group by the fireplace. For a while I just listened.

“Camilla, you grow younger every year!” intoned the Governor.

Mrs. Pomeroy gestured coquettishly. “You just want my vote, Johnson.”

“How long are you going to be with us, Governor?” asked Pomeroy. If he was alarmed by the mess he was in, he didn’t show it; except for his pallor, he seemed much as ever.

Mrs. Rhodes excused herself and went in to the dining room. The Governor remarked that he would stay in town through the funeral and the reading of the will; that he was flying back to Talisman City immediately afterwards: “Got that damned legislature on my hands,” he boomed. “Don’t know what they’ll do next.” He looked about him to make sure that no members of the deceased’s family were near by; then he asked: “How did your session with the Defense Department go?”

Pomeroy shrugged. “I was at the Pentagon most of the day … I’m afraid the only thing they wanted to talk about was the … accident.”

“A tragical happening, tragical,” declared the Governor, shaking his head like some vast moth-eaten buffalo.

Pomeroy sighed: “It doesn’t do my product much good,” he said. “Not of course that I’m not very sad about this, for Mrs. Rhodes’ sake, but after all, I’ve got a factory back home which has got to get some business or else.”

“How well I know, Roger,” said the Governor with a bit more emphasis than the situation seemed to call for. I wondered if there was any business connection between the two. “We don’t want to swell the ranks of the unemployed, do we?”

“Especially not if I happen to be one of the unemployed,” said Roger Pomeroy dryly.

“I always felt,” said his wife who had been standing close to the Governor, listening, “that Lee’s attitude was terribly unreasonable. He should’ve done everything in his power to help us.”

“What do you mean?” asked the Governor.

Pomeroy spoke first, quickly, before his wife could elaborate. “Lee didn’t push the 5-X as vigorously as I thought he should, that’s all … that was one of the reasons I came to Washington on this trip … poor Lee.”

“Poor Lee,” repeated Mrs. Pomeroy, with real sincerity.

“A great statesman has fallen,” said the Governor, obviously rehearsing his funeral oration. “Like some great oak he leaves an empty place against the sky in our hearts.”

Overwhelmed by the majesty of this image, I missed Pomeroy’s eulogy; the next remark I heard woke me up, though. “Have you seen the will yet?” asked Mrs. Pomeroy, blowing her nose emotionally.

The Governor nodded gravely. “Indeed I have, Camilla. I drew it up for Lee.”

“I wonder …” she began, but then she was interrupted by the appearance of Lieutenant Winters who joined us at the fireplace, bowed to the Governor and then, politely but firmly, led Mr. Pomeroy into the dining room. Interviews, I gathered, had been going on for some time. The Governor detached himself from Camilla Pomeroy and joined Miss Pruitt on the couch and, considering the “tragical” nature of the occasion, both were quite boisterous, talking politics eagerly.

My own interview with the Lieutenant took place right after he had finished with Pomeroy. I sat down beside him in the dining room; the table was brilliantly set for dinner, massive Georgian silver gleaming in the dim light. Through the pantry door I could hear the servants bustling about. The usual plain-clothes man was on hand, taking notes. He sat behind Winters.

It took me several minutes to work my way past the Lieutenant’s official manner; when I finally did, I found him troubled. “It won’t come out right,” he said plaintively. “There just isn’t any evidence of any kind.”

“Outside of the explosive.”

“Which doesn’t mean a thing since anybody in this house, except possibly you, could have got to it.”

“Then you don’t think Pomeroy was responsible?”

Winters played with a fork thoughtfully. “Yes, I think he probably was but there’s no evidence. He had no motive … or rather he had no more motive than several others.”

“Like who?”

A direct question was a mistake I could see; he shook his head, “Can’t tell you.”

“I’m beginning to find out anyway,” I said. I made a guess: “Rufus Hollister,” and I paused significantly.

“What do you know about him?” Winters was inscrutable; yet I had a feeling that I was on the right track.

“It seems awfully suspicious his wanting to get into the Senator’s office. I have a feeling there’s something in there he doesn’t want you to find.”

Winters stared at me a moment, a little absent-mindedly. “Obviously,” he said at last. “I wish I knew, though, what it was.” This was frank. “We’re still reading documents and letters. It’ll take us a week to get through everything.”

“I have a hunch you’ll find your evidence among those papers.”

“I hope so.”

“None of the press has been let in on this yet, have they?”

Winters shook his head. “Nothing beyond the original facts. But there’s a lot of pressure being brought to bear on us, from all over.” I was suddenly sorry for him: there were a good many disadvantages to being mixed up in a political murder in a city like Washington. “That Pruitt woman, for instance … she was in touch with the White House today, trying to get out of being investigated.”

“Did it work?”

“Hell no! There are times when the law is sacred. This is one of them.”

“What about the will?” I changed that subject.

“I haven’t seen a copy of it yet. The Governor won’t let us look at it until tomorrow … says he ‘can’t break faith with the dead.’ ”

“You may find out something from that, from the will.”

“I doubt it.” The Lieutenant was gloomy. “Well, that’s all for now,” he said at last. “The minute you turn up anything let me know … try and find out as much as you can about the family from Miss Rhodes: it’d be a great help to us and might speed things up.”

“I will,” I said. “I’ve already got a couple of ideas about Hollister … but I’ll tell you about them later.”

“Good.” We both stood up. “Be careful, by the way.”

“Careful?”

He nodded grimly. “If the murderer should discover that you were on his tail we might have a double killing to investigate.”

“Thanks for the advice.”

“Think nothing of it.” On a rather airy note, I went back to the company in the drawing room. My mind was crowded with theories and suspicions … at that moment they all looked like potential murderers to me. Suddenly, just before I joined Ellen and Walter Langdon, I thought of that quotation I had found in his room, the one he had snatched away from me. I also remembered where it came from: my unconscious had been worrying it for several hours and now, out of the dim past, out of my prep school days, came the answer: William Shakespeare … the play: Julius Caesar … the speaker: Brutus … the serpent in the egg: Caesar. There was no doubt about it. Brutus murdered the tyrant Caesar. It was like a problem in algebra: Senator Rhodes equals Julius Caesar; X equals Brutus. X is the murderer. Was Walter Langdon X?