Death Before Bedtime

CHAPTER FIVE

1

It was another all-night session.

Winters nearly had a nervous breakdown that night and the rest of us were far from being serene. We were interviewed one after the other in the dining room, just like the first night but under more distracting circumstances for police photographers and investigators were all over the place and there was talk that Winters would soon be succeeded by another, presumably more canny, official.

The Pomeroys returned, looking no worse than the rest of us that grisly dawn. The newspaper people were at every window until they were finally given a somewhat muffled and confused statement by Winters. He made no mention of the arrest of Pomeroy, an arrest which had not been legally completed, I gathered, since Mr. Pomeroy was now among us.

I sat beside Ellen in the drawing room. The others, the ones who were not being interviewed, talked quietly to one another or else dozed like Verbena Pruitt in her chair, her mouth open and snoring softly, her hair in curlers and her majestic corse damascened in an intimate garment of the night.

Ellen for once looked tired. Langdon sat some distance away, staring at the coals in the fireplace, wondering no doubt how on earth he was to get a story for Advanceguard out of all this confusion.

“Why,” said Ellen irritably, “do they keep us up like this if Rufus did the murder? Why all this damned questioning? Why don’t they go home?”

“They have to find out where we all were,” I said, reasonably … but I wondered too why the confusion since the police had not only a confession but the confessor’s corpse, the ideal combination from the official point of view: no expensive investigation, no long-drawn-out trial, no angry press demanding a solution and a conviction.

Through the crack between the curtains, I saw the gray dawn and heard the noise of morning traffic in the streets. My eyes twitched with fatigue.

Ellen yawned. “In a few minutes I’m going to go to bed whether they like it or not.”

“Why don’t you? They’ve already got your testimony.” There was a commotion in the hall. We both looked and saw Rufus Hollister departing by stretcher, a sheet of canvas over him. As the front door opened, there was a roar of triumph from the waiting photographers; flash bulbs went off. The door was slammed loudly and Rufus Hollister’s earthly remains were gone to their reward: the morgue and, finally, the tomb.

“Disgusting!” said Ellen, using for the first time in my experience that censorious word. Then, without permission, she went to bed.

After the body was gone, a strange peace fell over the house. The policemen and photographers and investigators all stole quietly away, leaving the witnesses alone in the house with Winters and a guard.

At five o’clock I was admitted to the dining room.

Winters sat with bloodshot eyes and tousled hair looking at a vast pile of testimony, all in shorthand, the work of his secretary who sat a few feet down the table with a pad and pencil.

He grunted when I said hello; I sat down.

He asked me at what time I had found the body. I told him.

“Did you touch anything in the room?”

“Only the corpse’s hand, his wrist, to see how long he was dead, or if he was dead.”

“Was the body in the same position when we arrived that it was in when you found it?”

“Yes.”

“What were you doing in Hollister’s room at that time of night?” The voice, though tired, was sharp and impersonal.

“I wanted to ask him something.”

“What did you want to ask him?”

“About a note I received this morning.”

Winters looked at me, surprised. “A note? What note?”

I handed it to him. He read it quickly. “When did this arrive?” His voice was cold.

“This morning at breakfast … or rather yesterday morning.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about it?”

“Because I thought it was a hoax. I figured there was plenty of time to give it to you. I had no idea you were planning to arrest Pomeroy so quickly.” This was a well-directed jab at the groin. Winters scowled.

“You realize that there is a penalty for withholding vital evidence?”

“I didn’t withhold it. I just gave it to you.”

A four-letter word of exasperation and anger burst from his classic mouth. We were both silent for a moment. He studied the letter. “What,” he said in a less official voice, “do you think this means?”

“I thought it meant that Hollister was the one who broke into the library that night and got some incriminating documents, or tried to find some.”

“Obviously he didn’t find them.”

“Did you find them?”

The law shook its head. “If we did we aren’t aware of their significance,” he said candidly. “We’ve checked and double-checked all the secret files and, as far as I can tell, there isn’t anything in any of them which would send Hollister to jail, or even the Senator … a lot of fast political deals but nothing illegal.”

“Do you think the Senator might have kept his business transactions somewhere else?” I recalled those mysterious safety deposit boxes belonging to pillars of the Congress which revealed, when opened posthumously, mysterious quanties of currency, received for services rendered.

“I think we’d have found it by now.”

“Maybe the Governor might be able to tell you. He was the Senator’s lawyer.”

Winters sighed and looked discouraged. “I can’t get a word out of him. All he does is harangue me about our heritage of civil liberty.”

“Maybe you can track down who wrote that note and ask them.”

Winters looked at me vindictively. “You picked a fine time to let me know, right after I almost made a false arrest. What was the big idea?”

“Remember that I didn’t see you all day. I got the note in the morning. I went to see Hollister to question him …”

“Then you did talk to him about the papers?”

“I certainly did.”

Winters was interested. “What did you get out of him? How did he seem?”

“I got nothing out of him and, for a man who planned to commit suicide in the next few hours, he was remarkably calm.”

“No hint at all? What exactly happened. Word for word.”

I tried to recall as exactly as possible my conversation, making my bluffs sound, in the telling, more insidiously clever than they were. My testimony was recorded by the silent clerk.

When I finished the Lieutenant was no wiser. “Was anyone else there? Did he mention anyone else’s name?”

“Not that I remember. We were alone. Some newspaper people tried to get him on the phone and …” A light was turned on in my head, without warning. “What time did Hollister die?”

“What time …” Winters was too weary to react quickly.

“The coroner, what time did he fix his death?”

“Oh, about twelve. They’ll know exactly when the autopsy is made.”

“Hollister was murdered,” I said with a studious avoidance of melodrama, so studiously did I avoid the dramatic that Winters did not understand me. I was forced to repeat myself, my announcement losing much of its inherent grandeur with repetition.

“No,” said Lieutenant Winters, beginning to weave in his chair, “he was the murderer. We have his confession.”

“Which was typed by the murderer after he was shot.”

“Go to bed.”

“I plan to, in a few minutes. Before I go I want to make sure that you plan to keep a heavy guard in this house. I have no intention of being the next ox slaughtered.”

“Why,” said Winters with a mock-show of patience, “do you think Hollister was murdered?”

“Because when I was in his office yesterday morning he got a telephone call from an unknown party who made a date to see him last night at midnight, at twelve o’clock, at the hour of his death. From what he said over the phone I could tell it was someone he was very anxious to please … someone he had every intention of meeting.”

“Perhaps he saw them and then killed himself.”

“Not likely. Not in the house. He was home all evening, I gather. He had made no plan to go out. Therefore his guest was coming to see him here. But no one entered or left the house, as far as we know … no stranger that is. Whoever he was supposed to meet was already in the house, one of the suspects … the murderer, in fact.”

While I had been talking Winters sat straighter and straighter in his chair. When I paused for breath, he said, “I don’t want you to say anything about this to anyone. Understand?”

“I do.”

“Not only because you may be right and the murderer would be warned but because if you are right and the murderer does think you’re on his trail we will have a third victim.”

I said that I had no desire to make the front pages as a corpse.

“There’s a chance you’re right,” he said thoughtfully. “I wish to hell you’d used your head and got that anonymous letter to me earlier. We could have tested it for prints, checked the handwriting and the paper … now it’ll take us several days to get a report on it. In the meantime, keep your mouth shut. Pretend the case is finished, which is what we’re going to do. We’ll keep the house party together for a few days longer, as long as we can. We’ll have to act quickly.”

“I know,” I said, feeling a little chilly and strange. “By the way whose pistol was it that did the murder?”

“Mrs. Rhodes’.”

2

I was most reluctant to meet the light the next morning, as the Roman poets would say, or rather the afternoon of the same day. I probably would have slept until evening if the telephone beside my bed hadn’t rung. I picked up the receiver, eyes still closed, positive that I could continue sleeping while conducting a lively conversation on the phone.

For several moments I mumbled confidently into the receiver, aware of a faraway buzz. Then I opened one eye and saw that I was talking into the wrong end. Correcting this, completely awake, I listened to Miss Flynn’s gentle reproaches.

“A Number of things have Come-up,” she said. “Which require your personal Supervision.”

I explained to her that a Number of things had Come-up here, too, that I couldn’t get away for several days.

“We were of the opinion that the case had been concluded in Washington and that the recent Suicidalist was, ipso facto, the Murderer of the Statesman.”

“Are the papers out?” I had not realized it was so late, that the afternoon papers are already on the street.

“Indeed they are. With a Prominent Display in the Globe bearing your Signature.”

I had pulled out all the stops in that article, just before going to bed. I had used more colors than the rainbow contains in my description of finding the body, of the case’s conclusion, for that was how Winters and I wanted it to sound. The editor had been most pleased and it took considerable strength on my part not to tell him there would be yet another story.

I stalled Miss Flynn as, unhappily, she outlined the various troubles which had befallen my clients. Most of the complications were easily handled over the phone. The dog food concern offered a serious crisis, however; fortunately, I was visited with one of my early morning revelations. I told Miss Flynn to tell those shyster purveyors of horsemeat that in twenty-four hours I would have a remarkable scheme for them. She was not enthusiastic but then enthusiasm would ill become her natural pomp.

After our conversation, I telephoned Mrs. Goldmountain and, rather to my surprise, got her. We made an appointment to meet later that afternoon.

Then I bathed, dressed and, prepared for almost anything, went downstairs. I was a little surprised to find life proceeding so calmly. Lunch was just over and the guests were sitting about in the drawing room. The law was nowhere in sight.

If anyone had noticed my absence during the day, it was not mentioned when I joined them.

I told the butler I wanted only coffee, which I would have in the drawing room. Then I joined Ellen and Langdon by the window. The shades were drawn, indicating either a bad day or the presence of police and newspaper people outside.

“Ah!” said Ellen, at my approach. She looked, of them all, the freshest. Langdon was rather gray and puffy.

“Ah, yourself.” I sat down across from them. Coffee was brought me. I took a long swallow and the world at last fell into a proper perspective.

“The case,” I said in Holmesian accents, “is closed.”

“Not quite,” said Ellen, looking at me with eyes as clear as quartz, despite the debauchery and tension of the night before. “It seems there is another day or two of questioning ahead of us, lucky creatures that we are. I’ve done everything except offer Winters my person to be allowed to go back to New York.”

I didn’t say the obvious; instead I asked her why she wanted to go back. “Tonight is Bess Pringle’s party, that’s why. It’s going to be the party of the season and I want to go.”

“Why does he want us to stay here?” I pretended innocence.

“God only knows. Red tape of some kind.”

“I’ve thought of one approach to the murder,” said Langdon suddenly, emerging from a gray study.

“And that?” I tried to look interested.

“The red tape aspects. You know, the complications which a murder sets in motion, all the automatic and pointless things which must be done, the …” His voice began to trail off as our lack of interest became apparent. I did see how the Advanceguard was able to keep its circulation down to the distinguished and essential few.

Before Ellen could begin her laments about Bess Pringle or Langdon could discuss the case with me, I asked about the party, explaining my early return to the house with some ready lie.

“We didn’t get back until two,” said Langdon gloomily.

“And I wouldn’t have come back at all if I had known what had happened,” said Ellen sharply.

“Did I miss anything?”

“A member of the Cabinet played a harmonica,” said Langdon coldly.

“He played a medley from Stephen Foster,” said Ellen.

“I thought you were with that Marine when the concert was given,” Langdon was catching on to our Ellen with considerable speed, considering his youth and idealism.

“Ah,” said Ellen and closed her eyes.

I left them and went over to the table by the fireplace where the mail was kept. There was only one letter for me, a thick one addressed in red pencil, the handwriting slanting backwards. My hands shook as I opened it.

Out fell a sheaf of legal documents. I looked through them rapidly, trying to find some explanation; there was none, no covering letter: nothing but a pile of legal documents which, without examining them, I knew concerned the business affairs of Hollister and the Senator, the papers for want of which he had apparently killed himself.

Before I could examine them further, Camilla Pomeroy came over to me, smiling gently. “How wonderful to be out of all this!” she exclaimed, looking deep into my eyes.

“You’ll be going back to Talisman City soon, won’t you?”

“As soon as possible,” she said.

“You must be relieved,” I said, trying to tell from her expression what she was actually thinking; but I could not: her face was as controlled as a bad actress’.

“Oh, terribly. Roger is like a new man.”

“He was in a tough spot.”

“Very!” She was not at all like the woman who had come to my room the other night with every intention not only of forbidden pleasure but of incriminating her husband. She was again the loyal wife, incapable of treachery. What was she all about?

“I … I want you to know that I wasn’t myself the night we had our talk. I was close to a breakdown and I’m afraid I didn’t know what I was doing, or saying. You will forgive me, won’t you?”

“There’s nothing to forgive,” I said gallantly, knowing perfectly well she was afraid I might let her husband know in some fashion about her betrayal, her double treachery.

“I hope you really feel that,” she said softly. Then, since there was nothing else to say, I excused myself; I asked the guard at the door where Winters might be found. He gave me the address of the police headquarters and so, without further ado, I took a taxi downtown.

I was escorted to Winter’s office, an old-fashioned affair with one tall window full of dirty glass. He sat at a functional desk surrounded by filing cabinets. He was studying some papers when I entered.

“What news?” I asked.

He waved me to a chair. “No news,” he said tossing the papers aside. “A report on your note from Mr. Anonymous. The handwriting isn’t identifiable, even though we have compared it to everyone’s in the house … the paper is perfectly ordinary and like none in the house, a popular bond sold everywhere, the red pencil is an ordinary red pencil like perhaps a dozen found scattered around the house, the fingerprints on the letter are all yours.…”

“I didn’t rub off someone else’s, did I?”

“There were none to rub off. I think sometimes that it should be made illegal for movies and television to discuss fingerprinting … since fingerprinting came into fashion, practically every criminal now wears gloves, and all because they go to movies.” He swore sadly to himself.

“Well, you got a good press,” I said cheerfully.

“It won’t be so good when it develops that someone murdered Hollister, if someone did.”

“You don’t have any doubts, do you?”

“When it comes to this case my mind is filled with doubts about everything.”

“Well, here’s a bit of news.” I handed him the documents.

We spent an hour going over them; neither of us was much good at reading corporation papers but we got the general drift: a company had been formed to exploit certain oil lands in the Senator’s state. Stock had been floated; the company had been dissolved at considerable profit to the original investors; it had been reformed under another name but with the same directors, more stock had been issued; it had been merged with a dummy company belonging to the Governor of the state. The investors took a beating and only Rufus Hollister, the Governor and the late Senator profited by these elaborate goings-on. Needless to say the whole subject was infinitely more complicated and the New York Times’ subsequent account of the deals gives a far more coherent account than I can. It was also clear that the Senator had fixed it so that he was in the clear should all this come to light and that Rufus Hollister was responsible, on paper at least, for everything; the Governor seemed in the clear, too.

Winters called in his fingerprint people, also a lawyer; the papers were handed over to them for joint investigation.

“It waxes strange,” I said.

“Why,” said Winters, “would Mr. X want to send you these papers? And the earlier lead, if it was the same person who sent you both?”

“I suppose because he thinks I will use them properly.”

“Then why not send them to the police?”

“Maybe he doesn’t like policemen.”

“Yet why, of all the people in the house, send it to you?” He looked at me suspiciously.

“The only reason I can think of, outside of my enormous charm and intelligence, is that I am writing all this up for the Globe … maybe the murderer is interested in a good press. I think maybe that’s the reason; then, perhaps, it doesn’t make too much difference to him who gets the information since he knows it will come to the police in the end anyway … it might have been just a whim … you have to admit the style of the first note was pretty damned whimsical.”

Winters grunted and looked at the ceiling.

“A number of people have seen fit to confide in me because of my position with the Fourth Estate. I may as well tell you that Camilla Pomeroy came to me the other night with the information that her husband was the Senator’s murderer; then, the next morning, Mrs. Rhodes gave me some exclusive information about the common-law marriage of Mr. Rhodes some years ago … you probably read all about it in my Globe piece.”

“And wondered where you’d got it, too. What did Mrs. Pomeroy tell you exactly?”

I repeated her warnings, omitting our tender dalliance as irrelevant.

“I don’t undersand,” sighed Winters.

“The only thought which occurs to me is that they are both beneficiaries. I’ve thought all along that we should be real old-fashioned and examine the relations of the three beneficiaries of the late Senator.” I had not of course thought of this until now; it seemed suddenly significant, though.

“We do that continually,” said Winters.

“It’s possible one of them killed him for the inheritance.”

“Quite possible.”

“On the other hand he might have been killed for political reasons.”

“Also possible.”

“Then again he might have been killed for reasons of revenge.”

“Very likely.”

“In other words, Lieutenant Winters, you haven’t the foggiest notion why he was killed or who killed him.”

“That’s very blunt, but that’s about it.” Winters seemed not at all disturbed.

I had a sudden suspicion. “You wouldn’t by any chance be thinking of allowing this case to go unsolved, would you? Stopping it right here, with a confession and a corpse who, presumably, made the confession before committing suicide.”

“What ever made you think that?” said Winters blandly, and I knew then that that was exactly what he had in mind. I couldn’t blame him; by admitting that Hollister had been killed and the confession faked, he put himself squarely behind the eight-ball, a position which the servants of the public like even less than we civilians do. Though he might have proven to all and sundry that he was a pretty sharp character to guess that Hollister was killed, he would also be running the risk of never finding the murderer which would mean that public confidence in the police would be shaken, in which event he himself would be shaken back to a beat in Georgetown. I could hardly blame him for this indifference to the true cause of justice. After all who really cared if the Senator and Hollister had been murdered? No one mourned the passage of either to the grave. For a moment love of law and sense of right wavered, but then I recalled myself to stern duty (the fact that I would have the success of the year if I could unearth the murderer after the case had been nominally shut by the police affected my right action somewhat).

“How long will you hold the crew together?” I asked, writing Winters off as an ally.

“Another day or so, until all the evidence is double-checked … the autopsy and so on completed.”

“We will then be free to go?”

“Unless something unforeseen happens.”

“Like another murder?”

“There won’t be another murder,” he said confidently and I wondered if he might have some evidence which I didn’t have. After all it was just possible that Hollister had committed suicide … driven to it by Mr. X, the possessor of the documents, a whimsical cuss who was obviously enjoying himself immensely.

“What about the gun?”

“Well, what about it? It belonged to Mrs. Rhodes, didn’t it?”

“That’s right … no prints on it except Hollister’s. Mrs. Rhodes kept the gun in the table beside her bed. She hadn’t looked at it in over a month. Anyone could have gone in there and taken it.”

“But how many people in the house would have known there was a gun in that night-table?”

“I haven’t any idea. Hollister knew, though.” He smiled contentedly. “He knew where everything was.”

“Except the papers which the Senator had hidden in the study, which someone else found first.”

“But who?”

“The murderer.”

“I see no evidence.”

“The evidence is in front of you or rather in the other room being gone over by your lawyer. How does this Mr. X know so much about the case? How did he know where to find the papers? Why did he send them to me at all since Hollister’s death was intended to finish the case?”

“It may be,” said Lieutenant Winters in the voice of innumerable Mary Roberts Rinehart heroines, “that we shall never know.”

“Go to hell,” I said.

He frowned. “Why don’t you stop fussing around, Sargeant? This is none of your business, we all have a perfect out. Let’s take it. I am as dedicated to duty as anyone and I don’t intend to drop the case, really; but I’m not going to beat my brains out over it and I am going to pretend it’s all finished. I suggest you do the same.” This was a threat, nicely phrased.

“I will,” I said. “But I’m not going to let it go unsolved if I can help it.” We sat staring hostilely at one another … conscious of the righteousness of my tone, I was almost ready to recite the Wet Nurses’ Creed in a voice choked with emotion. But I let it ride.

“Well, I better be going,” I said, standing up.

“Thanks for letting me have the papers.”

“Think nothing of it.” Full of wrath, I departed.

3

Mrs. Goldmountain lived in a large house of yellow stone, mellowed with age, in Georgetown, the ancient part of the city where, in remade slums of Federal vintage, the more fashionable Washingtonians dwell. Her house, however, was larger than all the others, the former residence of some historic personage.

I was shown to an upstairs sitting room, hung in yellow silk, all very Directoire. After a moment’s wait, Mrs. Goldmountain appeared, neat in black and hung with diamonds. “Mr. Sargeant, isn’t this nice? I was so happy you could come to the party last night with darling Ellen … poor shattered lamb!” I could see now why I had been admitted so quickly, without hesitation: I was straight from the Senator’s house and would know, presumably, all about the murders. I had every intention of indulging La Goldmountain.

“She’s taking it very well,” I said, which was putting it as nicely as possible.

“She was devoted to Lee Rhodes. Of course they never saw much of each other but everyone knew of their devotion. They were so alike.”

I failed to see any resemblance but that was beside the point. I mumbled something about “like father like daughter.”

“Of course some people were shocked by her going out so soon after his death but I said after all she is young and high-spirited and there is nothing, simply nothing she can do about his being dead. I love tradition, you know, but I see no reason for being a slave to it, do you? Of course not. They must all be relieved that that horrible man who killed himself confessed.”

“Yes, we were pretty happy about that: I mean, justice being done and all that.”

“Of course. Is it true that poor Roger Pomeroy was nearly arrested?”

I said that it was true.

“How frightful if the wrong man had been convicted! I have always liked Roger Pomeroy, not that our paths have crossed very often, just official places, that’s all, especially during the war when he was here on one of those committees. I never took to her I’m afraid; I always thought her rather common, never having the slightest notion that she was really Lee’s daughter, like that! What a cross it must have been for her to bear: it could explain everything. My analyst, who studied with Dr. Freud in Vienna, always said that whatever happens to you in the first nine months before you’re born determines everything. Well, I mean if the poor little thing knew before she was born that she was illegitimate (and they’ve practically proven that we do know such things … we later forget them during the trauma of birth, like amnesia) it would certainly have given her a complex and explained why I always thought her just a little bit common.”

I stopped the flow gradually. I diffidently explained my proposition to her.

“For some time now my clients, the Heigh-Ho Dogfood Company, have wanted an outstanding public relations campaign. I’ve tried any number of ideas on them but none was exactly right. The campaign we had in mind must have dignity as well as public appeal and, you will admit, those two things aren’t easy to find together. The long and the short of it, Mrs. Goldmountain, is that I think we could make a dandy campaign out of Hermione.”

“Oh, but I could never consent …” She began, but I knew my Goldmountain.

“We would arrange … Heigh-Ho would arrange … for her to give a recital at Town Hall. As a result of all that publicity she would appear on television, on radio and perhaps even a movie contract might be forthcoming. You, as her owner, would of course lend considerable dignity to all of this and though the publicity might be distasteful …”

That did it. Any mention of publicity made Mrs. Goldmountain vibrate with lust.

“If I were to accept such a proposal, I would insist on supervising Hermione’s activities myself.”

“I think that is a fair request … I’m sure Heigh-Ho would consult you on everything.”

“I would also insist on having final say about her program at Town Hall. I know what her capacities are and I know the things she can do. I would never permit her to sing any of these modern songs, only the classics and of course the National Anthem.”

“You will be allowed to choose the repertoire of course. Also the voice coach.”

“You feel she needs a coach?” I had made a blunder.

“All the stars at the Metropolitan have voice coaches,” I said quickly. “To keep their voices limbered up.”

“In that case, I would be advised by you,” said Mrs. Goldmountain graciously, her eyes narrowing as she saw the spread in Life as well as the image of Hermione and herself flickering grayly on the little screen in millions of homes.

“What songs does she do best?” I asked, closing in.

“German Lieder, and Italian opera. If you like we can hear her now.”

“Oh, no,” I said quickly, “not now, some other time. I know her genius already. All Washington does and, soon, the whole world will know.”

“You may tell Heigh-Ho, that I shall seriously entertain any offer they wish to make.” And so our treaty was fashioned. I asked permission to telephone the Vice-President of Heigh-Ho in New York. It was granted. The official was delighted with my plan and made an appointment to meet Mrs. Goldmountain the next afternoon, in Washington.

Everyone was happy and my firm was again on solid footing. Mrs. Goldmountain invited me to take tea with her and a few guests who were at this moment arriving. One of them turned out to be the new Senator, former Governor Johnson Ledbetter.

“Remember you well!” he boomed, pumping my hand. “A much less unhappy occasion I am glad to say.” He beamed vaguely and accepted a drink from the butler. I took tea, as did our hostess and the two other guests; one a political commentator of great seriousness, the other Elmer Bush who had arrived while I was greeting the Senator. Elmer was every bit as cordial as the old political ham, both slices off the same haunch, as it were.

“Well, it looks like you’re all innocent,” said Elmer toothily as we stepped back out of the main line of chatter which circulated around the new Senator and Mrs. Goldmountain.

“It certainly does, Elmer.”

“I suppose you’ll be going back to New York?”

“Very soon.”

“Winters, I gather, is very pleased about the way the case shaped up, very pleased.”

“I should think so.”

“Quite a trick of his, pretending to arrest Pomeroy while really making a trap for Hollister.”

“Trap?”

“Isn’t that what happened? Wasn’t Hollister driven to commit suicide by the police? Naturally, they wouldn’t admit anything like that but it seems clear: they pretended to have evidence which they didn’t have, forced him to confess and then to kill himself, an ingenious, a masterful display of policemanship.”

Elmer Bush never joked so I assumed that he was serious and left him rigorously alone.

“I’ve already discussed it on my show. You probably saw it night before last, got a good response too. The public seems unusually interested in this affair, something out of the ordinary, Senator being murdered and all that, very different. I thought I might drop by and take a few shots of the house on film to be used in my next program …” And he tantalized me with promises of glory if I would help him get in to see the house and Mrs. Rhodes. I told him I would do what I could.

Across the room the Senator-designate was booming.

“Dear lady, I will be saddened indeed if you don’t attend the swearing in tomorrow at the Capitol. The Vice-President is going to do it, in his office, just a few friends will be there, very cozy, and the press. Say the word, and I shall have my secretary send you a ticket.”

“It will be a moment to be cherished,” said our hostess, looking up into his full-blown face, like a gardener examining a favorite rose for beetles.

“I am only saddened that my appearance in the halls of Congress should have been like this … in the place of an old and treasured friend. How tragical!”

A murmur of sympathy eddied about him. “Lee was a man to be remembered,” said the statesman.

His oration was shorter than I had suspected; when it was over he and Elmer Bush fell into conversation about the coming convention while I chatted with Mrs. Goldmountain.

“You’re going to be in Washington a little while longer?”

“Two days at least … so the police say.”

“Why on earth do they want you now that it’s all over?”

“Red tape. You know how they are.”

“Well, give my love to darling Ellen and tell her to come see me before she goes back.”

“I certainly will.”

“And also to Mrs. Rhodes.” She paused and sipped some tea, her black eyes dreamy. “She must be relieved.”

“That the case is finally over?”

“In every sense,” said Mrs. Goldmountain significantly.

“What do you mean?”

“Only what everyone in Washington knows and has always known, that she hated Lee Rhodes, that she tried, on at least two occasions, to divorce him and that he somehow managed to talk her out of it. I’m quite sure it was a relief to her when he was killed, by someone else. That awful Hollister really did do it, didn’t he?”

4

I returned to the house shortly after five, and went straight to my room. As I bathed and dressed for dinner, I had a vague feeling that a pattern was beginning to evolve but precisely what I could not tell. It was definite that there were a number of charades being performed by a number of people for a number of reasons … figure out the meanings of the charades and the identity of the murderer would become clear.

I combed my hair and began to construct a plan of attack. First, the Pomeroys. It was necessary that I discover what her game was, why she had come to me with that story about her husband. I should also find out why he had been, all in all, so calm about his arrest: had he been so sure of vindication? And, if he had, why?

Second, I should like to investigate Mrs. Rhodes’ whole mysterious performance, her reference to the paper chase, her possible authorship of the anonymous letters, the fact of her revolver’s use as a murder weapon. What had her relationship been, truly, to Senator Rhodes? I found Mrs. Goldmountain’s assertion difficult to believe. Yet she had, Heaven knew, no reason to be dishonest and if Mrs. Rhodes had detested her husband.… I thought of that firm old mouth, the controlled voice and gestures: I could imagine her quite easily killing her husband. But how could I find out? Ellen was much too casual about her family to know. Verbena Pruitt seemed the likeliest source, the old family friend … except it would not be easy to get anything out of her; she was too used to the world of politics, of secrecy and deals to be caught in an indiscretion. Still I decided to give her a try that evening.

The third charade concerned my erstwhile ally Lieutenant Winters; as a matter of curiosity I wanted to know just what game he was playing, what was the reason for his apparent desertion of the case.

And, finally, there was always Langdon; the idea that he might have committed a political murder appealed to me enormously: it was all very romantic and Graustarkian … unfortunately he hardly seemed the type to do in poor Hollister, but then murder knoweth no type as the detectives’ Hand Manual would say, if there was such a thing.

Verbena Pruitt could undoubtedly have done the murders, but there was no motive as far as I could tell. Ellen was quite capable of murdering her father, me, Langdon and the President of the United States, but she had been at the Chevy Chase Club when Hollister was murdered, as had Langdon, ruling them both out.

This left Verbena Pruitt and Mrs. Rhodes as the only two who were in the house at the time of Hollister’s death (the Pomeroys had been at the police station). The murderer then, barring the intervention of an outsider, was either Verbena or Mrs. Rhodes and, of the two, only Mrs. Rhodes had had the motive.

The result of all this deductive reasoning left me a little cold. I sat down heavily on the bed, hairbrush in hand and wondered why I hadn’t worked all this out before. My next thought concerned Winters. He had obviously worked it out for himself. He must’ve known for some hours what the situation was; he had studied all the statements, had known where each of us was. He must know then that Mrs. Rhodes was, very likely, the murderer and yet he had seemed ready to give up the case. Why? Had he been bought off? This was altogether too possible, knowing the ways of the police, in my own city of New York anyway. Or had he, out of a sense of chivalry, not chosen to arrest her, preferring to rest on the laurels provided him by Hollister’s apparent suicide?

I began to think that it might be a good idea if I forgot about the whole thing. I had no desire to see justice done, either in the abstract or in this particular case. Let the tyrants go to their graves unavenged, such was my poetical thought.

The telephone by my bed rang. I answered it. Ellen was on the line. “Come to my room like a good boy,” she commanded. “We can have a drink before dinner.”

She was already dressed for dinner when I opened the door; she was buffing her nails at her dressing table. “There’s a drink over there on the table, by the bed.” And sure enough there was a Martini waiting for me. I saluted her and drank; then I sat in a chintzy chair, looking at her. I have always enjoyed watching women make themselves up, the one occupation to which they bring utter sincerity and complete dedication. Ellen was no exception.

“When are you going back?” she asked, examining her nails in the light, a critical, distracted expression on her face.

“I hope tomorrow,” I said. “It depends on Winters.”

“I’m going to go tomorrow, too,” she said flatly. “I’m tired of all this. I’m sick of the reporters and the police, even though that Winters is something of a dear … and on top of all that I have, ever since I can remember, loathed Washington. I wonder if we could get out of here tonight?” She put down her piece of chamois or whatever it was she was polishing her nails with and looked at me.

“I doubt it,” I said. “For one thing Winters will be here.”

“Oh damn!”

“And for another thing I don’t think those detectives would let us go without permission from him.”

“We could duck them; there’s a side door off the small drawing room nobody ever uses. We could get out there; there’s no guard on that side of the house.…” As she spoke she sounded, for the first time since I’d known her, nervous and upset.

“Why do you want to leave so badly?”

“Peter, I’m scared to death.” And she was, too; her face was drawn beneath the skillful make-up and her hands shook as she drank her Martini.

“Why? There’s nothing to be afraid of, is there?”

“I.…” Then she stopped, as though changing her mind about something. “Peter, let’s go back tonight, after Winters leaves.”

“It wouldn’t look right; on top of that we might be in contempt of court or something.” I was very curious, but it was up to her to tell me why she wanted, so suddenly, to get out of Washington.

She lit her cigarette with that abrupt masculine gesture of hers, quite unlike any other girls I had known. This seemed to soothe her. “I suppose I’m just getting jittery, that’s all, delayed reaction.”

“I will say you’ve been unnaturally calm through everything; in fact I’ve never seen anything like the way you and your mother both managed to be so clear-headed and unemotional about everything.” This was a direct shot and it hit home; a flicker of emotion went across her face, like a bird’s shadow in the sun. But she told me nothing.

“We’re a cold-blooded family, I guess.”

“I can understand you,” I said. “I mean you’d lived away from home so long and you didn’t care much about your father, but Mrs. Rhodes … well, it’s quite something the way she’s taken all this.”

“Ah,” said Ellen distractedly. She stood up. “I think I’ll go mix us another Martini. I keep the stuff in the bathroom … force of habit. In the old days I always had a mouthwash bottle full of gin.” She disappeared. I stood up and stretched. I could hear Ellen rattling around in the bathroom … somewhere in the house a door slammed, a toilet was flushed: life went on, regardless of crisis. In a pleasantly elegiac mood, brought on by the first Martini and increased by the knowledge that soon there would be a second, I wandered about the room, examining the girlhood books of my one-time fiancée. It was an odd group. The Bobbsie Twins were next to Fanny Hill and Lady Chatterley nestled the Rover Boys, as she might well have done in life. It was obvious that Ellen’s girlhood interests had changed abruptly with puberty. Only a bound volume of the Congressional Record attested to her birth and position in life, and it looked unopened.

“Here you are, love.” She looked somewhat rosier and I decided that she had very likely had herself a large dividend, if not a capital gain, while she was preparing my drink. I toasted her again and we discussed the merits of Fanny Hill until dinnertime.

For the first time since I had arrived in Washington nearly a week before, the company at table could have been described as hearty. It was not clever nor amusing, the guests were too solid for that, but it was at least not gloomy and everyone drank Burgundy with the roast and even Mrs. Rhodes smiled over her black lace and jet, like the moon in its last quarter.

I watched her carefully for some sign of guilt, some bloody ensign like Lady Macbeth’s spotted hand, but she was as serene as ever and if she were a murderess she wore her crimes with an easy air.

I sat beside Roger Pomeroy and we talked to one another for the first time in some days; he was most cheery. “Had a most profitable visit with the Defense Department today,” he said, drying his lips after a mouthful of wine, staining the napkin dark red … I was full of blood-images that night.

“About your new explosive?”

“That’s right. I gather it’s been checked out favorably by their engineers and chemists and it looks as though they’ll be placing an order with us soon.”

“All this without the Senator’s help?”

Pomeroy smiled grimly. “There’s a new Senator … as of tomorrow anyway. We made it very clear that Talisman City was a pretty important place come next November and that the Administration would do well to keep us happy.”

“And it worked?”

“Seems to’ve. Tomorrow Cam and I are flying back home. I’ll be glad to get out of this goddamned town, you may be sure.”

“Do you think they’d really have been able to convict you?” It was the first time I had ever mentioned the murder directly to him, out of sympathy for a “murderer’s” feelings.

“Hell no!” He set his glass down with a thump. “In the first place that young fool Winters went off half-cocked. He assumed that since the explosive was mine and I was angry at Lee for his behavior about the new contract and I knew that my wife stood to inherit a lot of money, that I went ahead and killed him. How dumb can you get? I was perfectly willing to kill Lee if I’d thought I could get away with it. But not in his own house and under suspicious circumstances; besides, in business you never kill anybody, as much as you’d like to.” He chuckled.

“Even so, they felt they had enough evidence to convict you with.”

“All circumstantial … every last bit of it.”

“How did you plan to get out of it, though? A lot of people have been ruined on much less evidence than Winters had on you.”

“Oh, I had a way.” He grinned craftily. He was a little tight and in an expansive mood.

“An alibi?”

“In a way.” He paused. “Now this is in absolute confidence … if you repeat it I’ll call you a liar.” He beamed at me, full of self-esteem. “I didn’t need Lee. Before I even got to Washington I had contacted someone else, someone very highly placed who promised to help me get the contract. That person was able to do it … had, in fact, told me that the contract would be forthcoming in the next ten days, told me in a letter sent the day before Lee was killed, special delivery, too, which I am pleased to say would have proven that I knew before I talked to Lee that the contract was set.”

“Why did you talk to him then?”

Pomeroy frowned. “Because Lee and I had been involved in a number of other deals before we quarreled. He was a vindictive man, like a devil when he thought that he was right about something, or rather that something was right for him … a bit of a difference, if you get what I mean. He was the boss of the state and it’s a good idea to clear anything which has to do with patronage and government contracts with the boss … that’s a simple rule of politics.”

“Then you had to have his O.K.?”

“No, but it would have helped. I was angry with him but that was all. I was a long way from being the ‘desperate and ruined man’ which the papers and the police thought I was.”

“Why didn’t you tell the police right off that you had already got the contract and that consequently there was no real motive for killing Lee Rhodes?”

Pomeroy smiled at me pityingly, as though unaware anyone could have reached the age of twenty-nine in a state of ignorance of business and politics comparable to my own. He spoke slowly, as though to a child. “If I had told the police that I had already fixed the contract, they would have asked for proof. I would have had to show them the letter. They would have got in touch with the author of the letter who would have been embarrassed and possibly ruined by the publicity. This country is run on one set of principles while pretending to another. Contracts are supposed to go to the best and the most economical company. Pomeroy, Inc. is a perfectly good company but so are a hundred others; to get a contract I must use influence … if I had exposed my benefactor I would have lost the contract, the friendship of a powerful person, my business …”

“But you would have saved your life.”

“My life was never in any danger. If things had got bad I would have told the whole story but I knew damn well they wouldn’t be able to indict me … though I suppose they came pretty close.”

One thing still bothered me. “Why did you and the Senator fall out in the first place? Why wouldn’t he back you up with the Defense Department?”

Pomeroy chuckled. “Lee always got the best price possible for his services. I was outbid, after ten years. A rival company bought him and he stayed bought, like they say. A big outfit from the North which has been expanding all over the country started up in Talisman City a year ago and since they’re real professionals they went to Lee right off and underwrote his campaign for the nomination. You probably know who I mean if you were handling his publicity.”

I knew indeed … one of the biggest cartels in the country. I had known they were contributors; I had no idea they were buyers as well.

“There wasn’t much I could do against them. Lee wanted to help me, you know, but he couldn’t. At least not until after the nominating convention was over, by which time I’d have been out of business. So I managed the deal without him. I only came to see him to find out about the future, to find out how long they had him tied up. I never did find that out. Lee was a devil, never think he wasn’t. He was cold and shrewd and he would’ve sacrificed his own mother for his career. He didn’t care about anybody except my wife. I don’t know why, but Cam and he were awfully close and he liked her better than Ellen, better than his wife, too. If only because of that, we could’ve proven that I’d not’ve been likely to kill him … in spite of the inheritance. He never liked me much but he would never have hurt her if he could have helped it. In time he would’ve made it up to us. I’m sure of that. Anyway, I was never in much danger.”

The pieces fell gradually into place. It was like a picture puzzle. I was now at the point where I had filled in the sky, got the frame of the picture all put together: now all that I had to do was fit the central pieces in, numerous tiny pieces, many of them the color of blood.

Winters had attended the dinner but not once did he speak to me or look in my direction. He spoke mostly to Camilla Pomeroy and Walter Langdon. After dinner we went into the drawing room. By the time I was seated, coffee in hand, the minion of the law had disappeared. His departure was noticed by no one, as far as I could tell.

I tried to maneuver toward Mrs. Rhodes but she, as though divining my plot, excused herself and went off to bed.

Langdon and Ellen played backgammon at the far end of the room; I noticed they no longer seemed to enjoy one another’s company as much as formerly and it looked as though Ellen would soon be in the market again for another fiancé. This shouldn’t be difficult, I thought, recalling that not only was she a handsome uninhibited piece but that she was now worth close to a million dollars, before taxes.

The Pomeroys conversed contentedly by the fire and Verbena Pruitt and I, the couple left over, fell into conversation.

“You have had quite an introduction to Washington,” said the lady of state, her face creasing amiably.

“It’s not what I’d expected.”

“I should think not. It’s lucky for all of us that everything worked out as neatly as it did. It could’ve been one of those cases where nothing was ever proved and everyone would have remained under suspicion for years … and that, young man, is grist for political enemies.”

“Grist,” I repeated sagely.

“Rufus didn’t use his head,” said Miss Pruitt thoughtfully, fondling a cluster of wax red cherries which a malicious dress designer had sewed in strategic places to her coffee-colored gown. “If I’d been he I wouldn’t have given up that easy. Suppose those papers had come to light and he was involved in a business scandal … who could have proven that he killed Lee? The worst that would’ve happened was a jail sentence for larceny, or whatever the crime was. Besides, how did he know that all this was going to come to light anyway?”

“I suppose that someone had threatened to expose him … someone who knew about the plot, the business deals, and also knew about the murder …” Miss Pruitt had obviously thought about this more carefully than one might have suspected.

“Piffle!” said Miss Pruitt in a voice which made the others start. Then, lowering her voice and looking at me significantly, she said, “Why would anyone want to do that?”

“Revenge?”

“Not very likely … to avenge Lee? Perhaps, but it seems far-fetched.”

“On the other hand, assuming Hollister was murdered by the Senator’s murderer, that would make no sense either since Pomeroy was obviously going to be indicted for the murder and since he was to take the rap there was hardly any reason to confuse matters further by killing Hollister and making him seem like the murderer.”

“I have not of course allowed myself to think that Rufus was killed. Yet, if he had been it might’ve been by someone who wanted to get Pomeroy off.”

“The only two people who were interested in that were both at the police station when Rufus was shot.”

“Who can tell?” said Miss Pruitt mysteriously, detaching a wax cherry by mistake; she looked at it unhappily for a moment; then she plunged it between her melonish breasts.

“It could be,” I said, trying to divert my morbid attention from her well-packed bodice, “that we are being much too subtle about all this. Hollister might have been remorseful; he might have known that his business dealings were going to be found out anyway and he might’ve thought: what the hell, I’m going to jail anyway, I might as well confess, save Pomeroy and get out of this mess ‘with a bare bodkin.’ ”

“ ‘For who would fardels bear.…’ ” boomed Miss Pruitt, recognizing my allusion to him whom they call “the bard” in political circles. She fardeled on for a moment or two; then, her soliloquy done, “It’s possible you’re right,” she said. “Since it is the police view I am perfectly willing to subscribe to it. I will follow them down the line one hundred per cent.”

It took me several moments to get her off the subject of Rufus Hollister and onto Mrs. Rhodes. The closer I got to what interested me, though, the more reticent the states-woman became.

“Yes, she is taking all this bravely, isn’t she? Of course she has character. Women of our generation do have character though I am some years younger than she. Of course living with Lee was not the easiest experience. He was a difficult man; that type is. I think to be the wife of a politician is the worst fate in the world, and I should know because I’m both a woman and a politician.”

“But they were fond of each other?”

She paused just long enough to confirm my suspicions. “They were very close,” she said, without conviction.

“Did she have much to do with his official life … elections and all that?”

“Not much. She handled the finances, though. I believe they owned everything jointly. I think she wanted him to retire this year but then all political wives are the same: she opposed his going after the nomination, which was good sense because he had no chance of getting it.” She looked craftily into the middle distance, implying that she knew who would be the peerless standard-bearer.

“Would you say that she had a vindictive nature?”

If I had slapped the great woman, I could not’ve got a more startled reaction. “What makes you ask that?” she blustered.

“Oh, I don’t know. It had occurred to me that she might have been the one who threatened Rufus, forced him to confess.”

“Nonsense!” Alarm rippled through the Pruitt, like a revolution in an African anthill; her face turned dark and I was afraid she might have a stroke; but then the odd convulsions ceased and she added, quietly, “Charity could be her middle name. Her life has been one long martyrdom, endured without complaint. She hated politics; she hated the idea of Camilla Pomeroy … as well she might; she almost died when Ellen ran off with a gymnast and the marriage had to be annulled …”

“I thought she married him in a church, properly.” I recalled the photograph of Ellen in wedding veil which the Senator kept in his study.

“No, she was supposed to marry an eligible young man, a fine upstanding lad who might have made something out of her. Two days before the wedding, a wedding which her parents approved of even though she was only seventeen, she ran off with this muscular animal. Her father caught her in Elkton, Maryland and the marriage was duly annulled. Yet in spite of the scandal, her mother took her back without a reproach. Her father …” The butler crept into the room to inform Miss Pruitt that there was a telephone call for her.

She disappeared into the hall. I sat drowsily by the fire. A moment later, she appeared, very pale, and asked me for brandy. I got some for her.

She gulped it sloppily, spilling half of it on her majestic front. I looked about the room to see if the others had noticed anything; they had not; they were deep in their own problems.

“Has anything happened?” I asked.

She dabbed at her dress with a piece of Kleenex; she was, for her, pale … her face mottled pink-gray. “That was Governor Ledbetter. It seems that the papers have got hold of some business deal he and Lee were involved in; something which involved Rufus: the thing he referred to in that confession. A terrible scandal.…”