Death Before Bedtime

CHAPTER THREE

1

I went to bed early that night. At dinner I drank too much wine and, as always, I felt bloated and sleepy. Everyone was in rather a grim mood so I excused myself at ten o’clock and went off to bed. I would have no visitors, I decided: Ellen was at work again on young Langdon and I was quite sure that they would be together, finishing what I had interrupted that afternoon.

I awakened with a start. For a moment I thought there was someone in the room and by the dim light of a street lamp I was positive that a figure was standing near the window. My heart racing, a chill sweat starting out on my spine, I made a quick lunge for the lamp beside my bed; it fell to the floor. Positive that I was alone in the room with a murderer, I jumped out of bed and ran to the door and flicked on the overhead light.

The room was empty and the figure by the window turned out to be my clothes arranged over an armchair.

Feeling rather shaky, even a little bit unwell, I went into the bathroom and took some aspirin. I wondered if I had caught Camilla Pomeroy’s grippe; I decided that the wine had made me sick and I thought longingly of soda water, my usual remedy for a hangover. It was too late to ring for the butler. According to my watch it was a little after one o’clock, getting near the hour of the Senator’s death, I thought as I put on my dressing gown, ready now to go downstairs in search of soda.

I remember thinking how dark the stairway seemed. There was one dim light burning on the third-floor landing and, from the bottom of the stair well, there was a faint light. The second landing was completely dark, however. Barely able to see, I moved slowly down the stairs, my hand on the banister. I was creeping slowly across the second landing, fumbling in my pockets for matches which were not there, when I suddenly found myself flying through space.

I landed with a crash on the carpeted stairs, stumbled forward, unable to stop my momentum; and, finally, bumped all the way downstairs like a comedian doing pratfalls, landing at the feet of Lieutenant Winters.

“What in Christ’s name happened?” he asked, picking me up and helping me into the drawing room where the lights were still on.

It took me several minutes to get myself straightened out. I had twisted my left leg badly and one shoulder felt as though it had been dislocated. He brought me a shot of brandy which I gulped; it made a difference … I was able to bring him and the room into focus, my aches and pains a little less overpowering.

“They should install elevators,” I said weakly.

“What happened?”

“Someone shoved me.”

“Did you see who it was?”

“No … too dark. The lights were out on the second landing.”

“What were you doing up?”

“I wanted to get some soda … upset stomach.” I stretched my arms carefully; my shoulder throbbed. Nothing was broken, though.

“I wonder.…” Then the Lieutenant was gone in a flash, running up the stairs two at a time. I followed him as fast as possible. When I reached the second landing, I was almost bowled over again by a gust of ice-cold air from the end of the hall. Then the lights came on and I saw Winters standing in front of the wrecked study; he was bending over the unconscious figure of a plain-clothes man. The blanket which had been hung over the study door was gone. I shivered in the cold.

“Is he dead?” I asked.

Winters shook his head. “Help me get him downstairs.” Together we carried the man down to the drawing room and stretched him out on a couch. Then Winters went to the front door and called one of the guards in and told him to look after his fallen comrade, to bring him to. “Somebody hit him,” said the Lieutenant, pointing to a dark red lump over one temple. The man stirred and groaned. The other plain-clothes men went for water while Winters and I went back upstairs again.

It was the first time I had been in the study since my interview with the Senator. The lights were still out of order in this room. Winters pulled out a small pocket flashlight and trained the white beam of light on the room. There was a gaping hole in the wall where the fireplace had been. All the ruined furniture had been pushed to the far end of the room, away from the hole. The various filing cabinets were open, and empty.

“You mean to say somebody got in here and took all the papers just now?” I was amazed.

Winters grunted, flashing his light over the shelves of books, over the photographs which hung crazily on the walls. “We took them,” he said. “They’re all down at headquarters. I wonder if our prowler knew that.”

“A wasted trip then,” I said, stepping back into the warm corridor, out of the cold room. Winters joined me a moment later. “Nothing’s been touched as far as I can tell,” he said. “We’ll have the fingerprint squad go over the place tomorrow … not that I expect they’ll find anything,” he sounded discouraged.

“Maybe the guard will know something,” I suggested cheerfully.

But the guard remembered nothing. He rubbed his head sheepishly and said: “I was sitting in front of that blanket when all of a sudden the lights went out and then I stood up and the next thing I knew I went out.”

“Where’s the light switch?” asked Winters.

“At the head of the stairs,” said the man unhappily. “Right by the door to Mr. Hollister’s room, in the center of the landing.”

“How could somebody turn off those lights without your seeing them?”

“I … I was reading.” He looked away miserably.

Winters was angry. “Your job was to watch that corridor, to make sure that nothing happened, to protect these people as well as to guard the study.”

“Yes sir.”

“What were you reading?” I asked, interested as always in the trivial detail.

“A comic book, sir.” And this was the master race!

Winters ordered the other plain-clothes man upstairs to take prints of the light switch. Then we went upstairs again and the Lieutenant proceeded to wake up everyone in the house for questioning. It was another late night for all of us and the discomfited politicos complained long and loudly but it did no good … it also did the law no good as far as I could tell. No one had heard my fall downstairs or the clubbing of the policeman; everyone had been asleep; no one knew anything about anything, and, worst of all, as far as the police could tell, nothing had been taken from the study.

2

I shall draw a veil of silence over the Governor’s funeral oration: suffice it to say it was heroically phrased. The occasion, however, was hectic.

It was the first time I had been out of the house since the murder. I had no business in Washington and since my main interest was the murder I had spent most of the time talking to the suspects, calling various newspaper people I knew to check certain facts. Consequently, it was something of a relief to get out of the house, even on such an errand.

We were herded into several limousines and driven downtown, through a miserably gray sleet, to the National Cathedral, a vast Gothic building only half completed. A crowd was waiting for us outside one of the side doors. Flash bulbs went off as Mrs. Rhodes and Ellen, both in heavy black veils, made a dash through the sleet from their car to the chapel door.

We were led by a pair of ushers down into a stone-smelling crypt, massive and frightening: then along a low-ceilinged corridor to the chapel, brilliant with candles and banked with flowers: the odor of lilies and tuberoses was stifling.

Several hundred people were already there … including the police, I noticed. I recognized a number of celebrated political faces: Senators, members of the House, two Cabinet officers and a sprinkling of high military brass. I wondered how many of them were there out of sympathy and how many out of morbid curiosity, to survey the murder suspects of whom I was one. I was very conscious of this, as I followed Mrs. Rhodes and the Governor down the aisle to the front row. When we sat down the service began.

It was very solemn. I sat between Mr. Hollister and Mrs. Pomeroy, both of whom seemed much affected. It wasn’t until the service was nearly over that I was aware of a slight pressure against my left knee. I glanced out of the corner of my eye at Mrs. Pomeroy but her head was bowed devoutly and her eyes were shut as though she was praying. I thought it must be my imagination. But then, imperceptibly, the pressure increased: there could be no doubt about it, I was getting the oldest of signals in a most unlikely place. I did nothing.

At the cemetery, the service was even quicker because of the sleet which had now turned to snow. There were no tourists: only our party and a few cameramen. I thought it remarkable the Senator’s wife and daughter could behave so coolly … for some reason only Rufus Hollister seemed genuinely moved.

When the last bit of hard black earth had been thrown onto the expensive metal casket, we got into the limousines again and drove back across the Potomac River to Washington and Massachusetts Avenue. It was a very depressing day.

The drawing room, however, was cheerful by contrast. The fire was burning brightly in the fireplace and tea had been prepared. Mrs. Rhodes, a model of serenity, poured. Everyone cheered up a good bit, glad to be out of the black December day.

Ellen had thrown off her veil; she looked fine in her basic black dress. “I loathe tea,” she said to me in a low voice as we sat together on a Heppelwhite couch at the far end of the room, close to the windows. The others were buzzing about the room in a dignified manner.

“Good for the nerves,” I said; as a matter-of-fact tea was exactly what I wanted at the moment. “What’s next on the agenda?”

“Reading the will, I suppose.”

“Your mother seems to be holding up awfully well.”

“She’s pretty tough.”

“Was she very fond of your father?”

Ellen chuckled. “Now that’s a leading question … as far as I know she was, but you never can tell. They used to be very close but then I’ve been away such a long time that I’ve rather lost touch with what’s been going on.” Across the room the Governor was talking gravely to Mrs. Rhodes who looked pale but controlled.

Then I told Ellen about Mrs. Pomeroy.

She laughed out loud; she stopped when she saw Verbena Pruitt looking at us with disapproval. “I didn’t know Camilla had it in her,” she said with admiration.

“I only hope you’re not jealous,” I teased her.

“Jealous? Of Camilla?” Ellen was amused. “I wish the poor dear luck. I hope she has a good time … you will give her one?”

“I haven’t thought that far ahead,” I said loftily, wondering myself what I should do about this situation. I wasn’t much attracted; on the other hand if her husband was the murderer I should, perhaps, devote a little time to her. “By the way,” I asked, “how is the affaire Langdon coming?”

Ellen scowled. “It’s not coming at all. Every time something is about to happen the lights go out or someone gets murdered. At this present rate it will be weeks before anything happens.”

“Were you with him last night?”

She smiled slyly.

“I don’t think it would be very easy: with that guard watching the corridor all the time.”

“He looks the other way. Besides, our rooms are on the same side and at the other end of the landing. He can’t tell whether I’m going into my room or the one next to it.”

“I see you’ve figured it all out.”

“Don’t forget that where the guard sits used to be my father’s study and that once upon a time Father used to work in there with the door open, keeping an eye on the hall and me, especially when we had young men staying in the house.”

“Jezebel!”

“There are times when I think I may be a little abnormal,” said Ellen calmly. Then, at a signal from the Governor, she got up and followed him into the dining room: the room of all work. In a few minutes only Verbena Pruitt, Langdon and Mr. Pomeroy were left in the room. The four of us sat cozily about the fire. Pomeroy mixed drinks. From the other room came the monotonous, indistinct sound of the Governor’s voice.

“I hope they’ll be finished with us soon,” said the great lady of American politics, scratching the point where her girdle stopped and her own firm flowing flesh began. She was in black now but her hat was trimmed with quantities of imitation cherries.

“So do I,” said Langdon gloomily, cracking his knuckles. “I have to get back to New York. The magazine is bothering the life out of me.”

“I should think they’d be delighted to have one of their people in this house,” I said reasonably, remembering my own newspaper days. Mr. Pomeroy handed me a Scotch and soda.

“I guess they think they have the wrong person here,” said Langdon truthfully.

“Nonsense, my boy. It’s all in your head. You can do anything you want to,” Miss Pruitt fired her wisdom over a jigger of straight rye.

“But remember, Verbena, a murder story without a murderer isn’t the most interesting thing in the world,” Mr. Pomeroy said quietly, shocking the rest of us a little since we all believed, deep down, that he was the murderer. If he was aware of our suspcions, he didn’t show it. He went right on talking about the murder, in a tired voice. “It’s one of those odd cases where no one is really involved, as far as we know … on the surface. I gather from the papers that some people think that because of the weapon used and because of my own troubles with Lee that I killed him … but, aside from the fact I didn’t kill him, doesn’t it seem illogical that I would use my own 5-X, immediately after a quarrel, to blow him up? It’s possible, certainly, but too obvious, and I will tell you one thing: considering the people involved in this affair nothing, I repeat nothing, is going to be simple or obvious.” There was an embarrassed silence after this.

“You know none of us think you did it,” said Verbena Pruitt with a good imitation of sincerity. “Personally, I think one of those servants did it … that butler. I never have approved of this habit of leaving money to servants, to people who work for you every day … it’s too great a temptation for them.”

I tried to recall who the butler was; I couldn’t, only a vague blur, a thin man with a New England accent.

“I don’t see why they think one of us had to do it,” said Langdon petulantly. “Anybody could have got in this house that day and planted the stuff in the fireplace. According to the butler, two plumbers were on the second floor all that afternoon and nobody paid any attention to them.”

This was something new. I wondered if Winters knew this. “Perhaps the plumbers didn’t have any motive?” I suggested.

“Perhaps they weren’t plumbers,” said Pomeroy, even more interested than I in this bit of information.

“Hired assassins?” This was too much I thought … still it happened quite often in the underworld … and the political world of Lee Rhodes had, in more than one place, crossed the world of crime.

“Why not?” said Pomeroy.

“But the reason the police think someone on the inside did it was because only a person who knew the Senator’s habits well could have figured out how to kill him that way, with the stuff in the fireplace.” I was sure of this: for once the official view seemed to me to be right.

Langdon dissented, to my surprise. “You’re going under the assumption that the only people in the world who knew the Senator’s habits were in this house as guests that night. You forget that a good many other people knew him even better than most of us did … people who would have been just as capable of blowing him up …”

“Perhaps,” I said, noncommittally. I made a mental note to call Miss Flynn in New York and have her check up on the past of Walter Langdon. I didn’t quite dig him, as the jazz people say.

Suddenly there was an unexpected sound from the dining room … a little like a shriek, only not so loud or so uncontrolled: an exclamation … a woman’s voice. Then the double doors were flung open and Mrs. Rhodes, white-faced, rushed through the room to the hall, not stopping to acknowledge our presence. She was followed by Ellen, also pale and oddlooking, and by Mrs. Pomeroy who was in tears. Outside, the Governor and Rufus Hollister were deep in an argument while, behind them, several servants, minor beneficiaries, trooped back to the kitchen.

Mrs. Pomeroy, without speaking even to her husband, left the room close on the heels of Mrs. Rhodes. Pomeroy, startled, followed her.

It was Ellen who told me what had happened, told me that Camilla Pomeroy, born Wentworth, was the illegitimate daughter of Leander Rhodes and a principal heir to his estate.

3

“Who would have thought it,” was Ellen’s attitude when we got away from the others after dinner; we pretended to play backgammon at the far end of the drawing room. Everyone had been shocked by the revelation. Winters was having a field day and Mrs. Rhodes was hiding in her room.

“Rufus is trying to keep it out of the papers but the Governor says that it’s impossible, that under the circumstances the will would have to be made public because of the murder. It’s going to kill Mother.”

“Did you ever suspect anything like this?”

She shook her head. “Not in a hundred years. I knew Camilla adored Father but I think I’ve already told you there was almost always some goose girl around making eyes at him and getting in Mother’s hair.”

“Did she know?”

“Mother? I don’t think so. You never can tell, though. She’s just about the most close-mouthed person in the world … has to be in politics. She seemed awfully shocked.”

“I’m not surprised … it must have been awful for her, hearing it like that … in front of everyone.”

Ellen grimaced. “Awful for everybody.”

“I wonder why he’d admit something like that … even in his will.”

“I suppose he never thought he’d die this soon … besides, it could have been kept quiet if there hadn’t been a murder to complicate things.”

“How much does she get?”

“A little over a million dollars,” said Ellen without batting an eye.

I whistled. “How much of the estate is that?”

“Around a third. Mother and I each get a third … and then the servants get a little and Rufus gets all the law books, and so on.”

“This changes everything.”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you still think you know who killed your father?”

She looked at me vaguely. “Darling, I haven’t the faintest idea what you mean.”

“You did a couple of days ago.”

“Now I’m not so sure.” She was obviously not listening to me. She kept rolling the dice onto the backgammon board, again and again without looking at the numbers.

“What made you say you thought you knew?”

“I’ve forgotten.” She seemed irritated. “Besides, why is it so important to you?”

“I have to do a story.”

“Then write about something else.”

“Don’t be silly. Anyway, even if I didn’t have to worry about the New York Globe I’d be worried on my own account … being shut up like this with a murderer … in the same house.”

“Oh, stop being so melodramatic! You haven’t the faintest connection, as far as I can see, with all this … why should you be in danger?”

“Because of my theories,” I said a little pompously … as a matter of fact I was still completely at sea.

Ellen said a short four-letter word which communicated her opinion of my detective abilities with Saxon simplicity.

“Tell me, then,” I said coolly, “why I should be shoved downstairs in the dark with such force that I could’ve broken my neck …”

“If your head hadn’t been so solid,” said the insensitive Ellen, rolling snake eyes. “By the way did you get a look at whoever it was who pushed you?”

“How could I? I told you it was dark on the landing.”

“I must say all that’s very exciting … it’s the one really interesting thing that’s happened since the murder.”

What a cold-blooded piece she was, I thought. She acted as though she were in a theater watching a play, interested only in being shocked or amused. I wondered if she might not have been the illegitimate daughter after all … no Electra she, as Time Magazine would say. “It would be a lot more interesting if they could find out what the murderer wanted in that room.”

“Why? Did he take anything?”

“Not as far as the police could tell. There weren’t any papers there anyway … everything had been taken down to headquarters.”

“Poor Rufus.”

“Why do you say that?”

“He’s terrified all his political shenanigans will be found out … he and Father were awfully close, you know … I suspect they were involved in all sorts of deals which might not bear investigating.”

“Well, if there was anything shady the police haven’t found it,” I said with more authority than I actually had: I was not naive enough to think Lieutenant Winters had confided all he knew to me. “I wonder if Rufus could have been the one who knocked the guard out last night, and pushed me downstairs.”

“I wouldn’t be at all surprised.”

“I doubt if there was anything in there the murderer could have wanted … if there had been he would have got it the night of the murder, before the murder … unless he left something by mistake.”

“Which the police would have found by now.”

There were so few real leads, I thought sadly. Pomeroy’s feud over the 5-X; Langdon’s strange quotation and highly political attitude … very much the fanatic type; Rufus Hollister’s terror of certain documents falling into the hands of the police; Camilla Pomeroy’s unexpected relationship to the Senator … her large inheritance which provided both her and her husband with ample motive for murder. But had they known she was included in the will? Had Pomeroy known that his wife was the Senator’s daughter? This was a question which should be cleared up soon: it would make a great deal of difference.

Across the room I saw Langdon excuse himself and go upstairs; a moment later Ellen gave a vast stage yawn and said, “I’m worn out, darling. I think I’ll go up now.”

“And get a little shut-eye?” I mocked.

“Don’t be a cad,” she said grandly and swept out of the room.

I found Winters in the dining room going over what looked like a carbon copy of the will. He looked up when I came in; his ever-present plain-clothes man made a move to bar my way but Winters wearily waved him aside. “Come on in.”

I sat beside him at the table. I asked the important question first.

He nodded in answer. “Yes, Pomeroy knew who his wife’s father was. It seems she told him last year … at the height of his quarrel with the Senator … she thought it would make him more reasonable.”

“Did it?”

Winters sighed. “The big question.”

“There’s a bigger question … did either of them know about the will?”

“It’ll be a long time before we figure that one out,” said the Lieutenant grimly. “Both deny having known anything about it. But …”

“But you think they did.”

He nodded. “The Governor drew up the will … he’s also Pomeroy’s lawyer, and an old friend.”

“Can’t very well grill a Governor.”

“Not directly.”

Remembering the pressure on my knee at the Cathedral, I had an idea. “I think I can find out something about the will, from Mrs. Pomeroy.” I told him about the knee-pressing episode. He was interested.

“It would be a great help. It’d just about wind up the case we’re making against Pomeroy: double motive, the weapon, the opportunity …”

“Two more suspects, though.”

“Who?”

“Hollister … he and the Senator were obviously involved in some illegal activities. And Langdon who’s something of a fanatic.” I related the business about the quotation but it was much too tenuous for the official mind. As for Hollister, we both agreed that he was an unlikely murderer since, had he done away with the Senator, he would have taken care to have got all the incriminating papers out of the study first. With a promise to do my best with Mrs. Pomeroy, I left Winters to his bleak study of the will.

I was staring at my typewriter with a feeling of great frustration, when there was a rap on my door. “Come in,” I said.

Rufus Hollister put his head inside the door, tentatively, like one of those clowns at a carnival who make targets of their heads for customers with beanbags. “May I come in?”

“Sure.” I motioned to the armchair opposite me. He sat down with a moan, crumpled I should say. I sat very straight at my desk, the light behind my head, ready to yell if he pulled a gun on me.

But if Rufus was the murderer, he was not in a murdering mood. In fact he was hardly coherent. “Just wandering by,” he mumbled.

“If I had a drink I’d offer it to you.”

“Quite all right. I’ve had a few already … maybe too many.” He sighed again, deeply; then he took off his thick spectacles and rubbed his owl eyes … they were rather tiny I noticed … quite different without the magnifying glasses.

“Do the papers know yet?” I asked, recalling that I was, after all, in the public relations business.

“Know?” He blinked at me.

“About the will? About Mrs. Pomeroy?”

“Not yet. I suppose they will be told tomorrow.”

“Has Mrs. Rhodes tried to do anything to keep the news out of the papers?”

“You know as well as I do there isn’t any way of keeping something like that secret.”

“I know. I just wondered if she had tried to keep it quiet.”

Rufus shrugged. “I haven’t seen her since the will was read.” There was a long pause. I wondered when he would come to the point; he obviously had some reason for wanting to see me. But he said nothing. He stared blankly at the floor; he seemed a little drunk.

Growing nervous, I said, “Is there anything in particular you think I should do for the family … in the way of public relations?”

“What? Oh … oh, no. It’s out of our hands now, I’m afraid.” He put his glasses on again and looked at me; with an effort he pulled himself together. “You’re doing a story about all this, aren’t you?”

I nodded. “For the Globe.”

“I wish you’d check with me before you send them anything.”

“Certainly … if I can ever find out anything to write for them.”

“You will,” he said ominously. “Soon, very soon.”

I waited for more, but he had drifted off again. “Tell me,” I asked, “did the Pomeroys come here much in the old days?”

He shook his head. “Pomeroy himself seldom came to the house. Mrs. Pomeroy did … fairly often.”

This was unexpected. “I seem to remember her telling me … or somebody telling me that they never came here, either of them.”

“She was here often.”

“And she knew the Senator’s habits well?”

He nodded; he knew what I was getting at but he refused to volunteer anything. He changed the subject. “You and Ellen are old friends aren’t you?”

I said that we were.

“She made her father unhappy, very unhappy,” said Mr. Hollister rubbing his palms together. It was my turn to wonder what he was getting at. “Her life has not been exemplary.”

“You’re not kidding!”

“At one time he even threatened to cut her off without a cent.”

“You mean when she married?”

“Later … last year when she was making a scandal of herself in New York.”

“I can’t exactly blame him.”

“Poor man … he had so many terrible things to bear during his life.”

“Why didn’t he cut her off?”

“Ah! You know her. She came down from New York last month and they had a terrible scene. I suppose she threatened to disgrace him once and for all if he didn’t give her the money she needed …”

“That sounds like Ellen.”

“What could he do? She was his own flesh and blood …”

“And he was about to run for President …”

“Exactly. She got her way … we always supposed that she had left for good until she came back with you this week. Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did she come back?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea. It seemed like a good idea, I suppose. We had both been drinking.”

“That explains it then?”

“She drinks a lot,” I added, but this wasn’t necessary … and still Mr. Hollister hadn’t come to the point.

“By the way,” he asked suddenly, “did you have any idea who pushed you last night?”

I shook my head; then I had an idea … a daring one. “I didn’t see who it was,” I said; then I added, slowly, looking straight at him, “But I have a very good idea who it was.”

I wasn’t able to interpret his reaction; he turned pale but I couldn’t tell if it was from guilt or astonishment. “Did you see anything?” he asked.

“A glimpse, that was all. I couldn’t say for sure who it was but I have a good idea.”

“Who … who do you think it was?” He sat on the edge of his chair, his breath coming in quick gasps.

“I can’t tell you,” I said, waiting for some sign … but there was none, other than this excitement.

“Be careful,” he said at last. “Be careful what you say to the police. The repercussions might be serious.”

“I know what I’m doing,” I said quietly, never more confused.

“I hope so. By the way, did the Senator talk to you at all about family matters?”

“No, not much … a little about Ellen since he thought I was going to marry her, but I straightened all that out.”

“And the campaign … did he talk about that? About those close to him in it?”

“Not a word … just general talk.”

“That was a pity,” he said cryptically; then he rose to go. I stopped him momentarily with a direct question.

“Who killed him?” I asked.

“Pomeroy,” said Rufus Hollister; then he said good night and left me.

4

I undressed slowly, thinking of what had been said. Hollister made me uneasy … I couldn’t tell just why but I had more than a faint suspicion that he might have been the murderer after all. It was evident that he had visited me to try and find out whether or not I had recognized whoever it was who’d shoved me down the stairs and it was possible that he was the one who had done the shoving … the murder, too? It was perplexing. I locked the door, leaving the key in the lock. I was nervous.

Then, dressed in pajamas, I sat down at the desk again and began to type idly. Pomeroy, Langdon, Hollister, Miss Pruitt, Mrs. Rhodes, Ellen, Mrs. Pomeroy. There was a knock on the door. I flipped on the overhead light (if I was to be shot I preferred a great deal of light); then I unlocked the door and slowly opened it. To my surprise Camilla Pomeroy, wearing a pale blue silk negligee, stood in the doorway.

“May I come in?” she asked in a low voice.

Startled, I said, “Yes.” I locked the door behind her. She stood in the center of the room as though unsure of herself, not certain what to do next. “Sit down,” I said, trying to be as casual as I could under the circumstances. Uncertainly, she went over to the armchair recently vacated by Rufus Hollister. She sat down; I sat opposite her. She was nearly as embarrassed as I.

“I … couldn’t sleep,” she said at last with a nervous laugh.

“Neither could I.” We looked at one another stupidly. I noticed with surprise how lovely she was … noticed also that she had not yet been to bed: her make-up was perfect and her hair was carefully arranged.

“You must think it awful of me coming in here like this in the middle of the night.” This came out in a rush.

“Why no … not at all.”

“I had to talk to someone.” She did sound desperate, I thought. I wondered whether or not I should suggest that her husband might be the man to talk to at this time of night. She guessed what I was thinking, though. “He’s asleep. He takes sleeping pills … very strong ones, since … it happened.” She almost sobbed. I wondered if I should get her a Kleenex. But she got a hold of herself. “Do turn that light out,” she motioned to the bright one overhead. “A woman doesn’t like too direct a light when she’s been crying.” Her attempt at frivolity was pretty ghastly but I turned out the light. She looked even better in the warm glow of a single lamp … and of course her looking better hardly helped the cause.

“Thank you,” she murmured. She pulled the negligee tight about her throat, emphasizing the full curve of her breasts. I wondered if she intended this.

“I had to talk to someone,” she repeated. I looked at her brightly, like one of those doctors in an advertisement: ready to make some comment about halitosis or life insurance.

“About … everything,” she said.

“About the will?”

“Yes.” She looked at me gratefully; glad that I was coming around. “Tomorrow all the world will know,” she said with a certain insincere overstatement which made me think that for a million dollars she didn’t give a damn what the world knew.

“There’s nothing you can do about it now,” I said soothingly.

“If only there were!” She still held one hand close to her throat, the way bad actresses do in moments of crisis on stage.

“People forget so quickly,” I said.

“Not in Talisman City,” she snapped. Then, recollecting herself, she added more softly, “The world is so unkind.”

I allowed that, all things considered, this was so.

“It was unfair of Lee … of my father to act the way he did.”

“You mean in … being your father?” I was dense.

“No, I mean in declaring to all the world my … shame.”

To which I replied, “Ah.”

“I can’t think why he chose to do it like this, so publicly.”

“Probably because there wasn’t any other way of leaving you his money.”

There was no real answer to this so she exclaimed again how terrible it all was.

“What does your husband think about it?”

She sighed.

“Did he know all along that … about the Senator and you?”

“Oh yes. He’s known for a year.”

“And the will … did he know about that, too?”

She closed her eyes, as though in pain. “Yes,” she said softly, “I think he knew about the will, too. I think the Governor told him.”

“But they never told you?”

She hesitated. “No,” she said. “Not exactly. I suppose I knew, in a way, but they never actually told me.” This was a bit of news, I thought. The outline of a plot suggested itself to me. “My husband never liked to talk about it … neither did I. It was just one of those things. What was that?” She started, and looked toward the door.

Nervously, expecting an angry husband, I opened the door and looked out. The hall was empty. “It was the wind,” I said, turning around. She was standing directly behind me … I could smell the musk and rose of her perfume.

“I’m frightened,” she said and this time she was not play-acting. I moved back into the room, expecting her to move too but she did not. Then I had my arms around her and we edged toward the bed. She wore nothing under the blue silk negligee and her body was voluptuous and had a young feel to it, smooth and taut with wide firm hips and her nipples pressed hard against my chest, burning through the pajama top. We kissed. She was no novice at this sort of thing, I thought as she gave the cord of my pajama trousers a deft tug and they fell to the floor beside her crumpled dressing gown. She pulled me against her violently and for a moment we stood swaying back and forth in one another’s arms. Then we fell across the bed.

An hour passed.

I sat up and looked down at her white body sprawled upon the bed; the eyes shut and her breathing regular and deep. “It’s late,” I said in a low voice.

She smiled drowsily and opened her eyes. “I haven’t been so relaxed in a long time,” she said.

“Neither have I,” I lied nervously; I didn’t like the idea of being treated like some kind of sedative.

She sat up on one elbow and pushed her hair back out of her eyes. She was obviously proud of her body; she arranged it to look like the Duchess of Alba. “What on earth would my husband say.”

“I hope I never know,” I said devoutly.

She smiled languorously. “He’ll never know.”

“Great thing sleeping pills.”

“I don’t make a habit of this,” she said sharply.

“I didn’t say you did.”

“I mean … well, I’m not promiscuous, that’s all … not the way Ellen is.”

I was a little irritated by this. Somehow, I felt she had no business talking about Ellen like that since, for all she knew, we might really have been engaged. “Ellen’s not that bad,” I said pulling on my pajamas. Then I handed her her negligee. “You don’t want that cold to get worse, do you?”

Reluctantly she snaked into the blue silk. “I’m very very fond of Ellen,” she said with a brilliant insincere smile. “But you have to admit she’s a law unto herself.”

I was about to make some crack about their being sisters under the skin when it occurred to me that this might be tactless since, as a matter of fact, they were sisters in a way.

She asked for a cigarette and I gave her one. “Tell me,” she said, exhaling blue smoke, “how long do you think it’ll be before the police end this case?”

“I haven’t any idea.”

“But you are working with Lieutenant Winters, aren’t you?”

This was shrewd. “How did you know?”

“It wasn’t hard to guess. As a matter of fact I caught the tail end of a telephone conversation you were having with some newspaper in New York.” She said this calmly.

“An eavesdropper!”

She chuckled. “No, it wasn’t on purpose, believe me; I was trying to call a lawyer I know in the District … you were on this extension, that’s all.”

“I haven’t any idea,” I said. “About the murder … about how long it’ll be before the police make an arrest.”

“I hope it’s soon,” she said with sudden vehemence.

“So do all of us.”

She was about to say something … then she stopped herself. Instead she asked me about the affair on the landing and I told her that I had seen no one. She looked disappointed. “I suppose it was too dark.”

I nodded. “Much too dark.”

She stood up then and arranged her hair in a mirror. I stood beside her, pretending to comb my own hair. I was aware of her reflection in the glass, very pale, with the dark eyes large and strange, staring at me. I shuddered. I thought of those stories about vampires which I had read as a child.

She turned around suddenly; her face close to mine … her eyes glittering in the light. “You must help me,” she said and her voice was strained.

“Help?”

“He’ll try to kill me … I’m sure of it. Just the way he killed my father.”

“Who? Who killed your father? Who’ll try to kill you?”

“My husband,” she whispered. Then she was gone.