Death Likes It Hot

1

THERE was no sleep in that house until dawn.

Greaves arrived. We met by candlelight in the drawing room. It seemed that shortly after midnight the lights had gone out which explained why there’d been no light in the house when Randan and I arrived. One of the plain-clothes men had been testing the fuse box in the kitchen for over an hour, without success.

Everyone was on hand but Allie Claypoole who had caved in from hysteria. A nurse had been summoned and Allie was knocked out by a hypo ... a relief to the rest of us for her shrieks, when she head the news, jangled our already taut nerves.

No one had anything to say. No one spoke as we sat in the drawing room, waiting to be called to the alcove by detective Greaves. Randan and I were the only two dressed; the others were all in night clothes. Brexton sat in a faded dressing gown, one hand shielding his face from the rest of us. Mary Western Lung, looking truly frightened, sat huddled, pale and lumpy, in her pink, intricate robe. Mrs. Veering snuffled brandy with the grimness of someone intending to get drunk by the quickest route. Randan and I were the observers, both studying the others . . . and one another for I was curious to see how he would take the death of a favorite uncle and guardian: he was the coolest of the lot. After his first shock when I thought he was going to faint, he’d become suddenly businesslike: he was the one who had the presence of mind not to touch the body nor the long sharp knife which lay beside it, gleaming in the moon. He had called the police while I just dithered around for a few minutes, getting used to the idea of Fletcher Claypoole with his head half off.

The women were called first; then Randan; then me . . . Brexton was to be last, I saw. For the first time I began to think he might be the murderer.

It was dawn when I joined Greaves in the alcove. The others had gone to bed. Only Brexton was left in the drawing room. The lights were now on. Greaves looked as tired and gray as I felt.

I told him everything that had happened. How Randan and I had talked for almost twenty minutes before discovering the body beneath the swing.

“What time did you arrive at the house of . . .” he consulted his notes gloomily, “Evan Evans?”

“A few minutes before twelve.”

“There are witnesses to this of course.”

“Certainly.”

“What time did Mr. Randan arrive at this house?”

“About one fifteen, I’d say. I don’t know. It’s hard to keep track of time at a party. We left at one-thirty, though. I remember looking at my watch.” I was positive he was going to ask me why I looked at my watch but he didn’t showing that he realized such things can happen without significance.

“Then you dropped off Miss Bessemer and came straight here?”

“That’ right?”

“At what time did you find the body?”

“One forty-six. Both Randan and I checked on that.”

Greaves strangled a yawn. “Didn’t touch anything, either of you?”

“Nothing ... or maybe I did when I got blood on my fingers, before I knew what was under the swing.”

“What were you doing out there? Why did you happen to sit down on that swing?”

“Well, we’d just come home from the party and there weren’t any lights on in the house and Randan wanted to talk to me about the murder of Mrs. Brexton so we walked around the house and sat down here. I suppose if a light’d been on we’d have gone inside.” I didn’t want to confess I’d been scared to death of going into that house alone.

“Didn’t notice anything odd, did you? No footprints or anything?”

“Nothing. Why were the lights out?”

“We don’t know. Something wrong with the master fuse.

One of our men was fixing it while the other stood guard.” Greaves sounded defensive. I could see why.

“And the murder took place at twelve forty-five?”

“How do you know that?” He snapped the question at me, his sleep-heavy eyes opening suddenly wide.

“It fits. Murderer tampers with fuse box; then slips outside, kills Claypoole in the swing while the police and others are busy with the lights; then . .

“Then what?”

“Well, then I don’t know,” I ended lamely. “Do you?”

“That’s our business.”

“When did the murder take place?”

“None of your . . but for reasons best known to himself, Greaves paused and became reasonable: I was the press as well as a witness and suspect. “The coroner hasn’t made his final report. His guess, though, was that it happened shortly after the lights went out.”

“Where's the fuse box?”

“Just inside the kitchen door.”

“Was a policeman on guard there?”

“The whole house is patrolled. But that time there was no one in the kitchen.”

"And the door was locked?”

“The door was unlocked.”

“Isn't that odd? I thought all cooks were mortally afraid of prowlers.”

“The door was locked after the help finished washing up around eleven. We have no idea yet who unlocked it.”

“Fingerprints?”

Greaves only shrugged wearily.

“Any new suspects?”

“No statement, Mr. Sargeant.” He looked at me coldly.

“I have a perfect alibi. I’m trustworthy.” I looked at him with what I thought were great ingenuous spaniel eyes. He was not moved.

“Perfect alibis are dirt cheap around here,” said the policeman bitterly.

2

I found out the next morning what he meant.

I awakened at eight thirty from a short but sound sleep. I spent the next half hour scribbling a story for the Globe . . . eyewitness stuff which I telephoned to the city desk, aware that I was being tuned in on by several heavy breathers. Then I went downstairs to breakfast.

Through the front hall window I caught a glimpse of several newspapermen and photographers arguing pathetically with a plain-clothes man on the porch ... I had, I decided a pretty good deal, all in all ... if I stayed alive of course. The possibility that one of the guests was a homicidal maniac had already occurred to me; in which case I was as fair a victim as anyone else. I decided the time had come to set my own investigation rolling , . . the only question was where?

In the dining room a twitchy butler served me eggs and toast. Only Randan was also down. He was radiant with excitement. “They asked me to stay over, the police asked me, so I spent the night in my uncle’s room.”

“Wasn’t that disagreeable?”

“You mean Allie?” His face became suddenly gloomy. “Yes, it was pretty awful. But of course the nurse stayed with her all night, knocking her out, I guess, pretty regularly. I didn’t hear anything much even though the walls around here are like paper. It was also kind of awful being in Fletcher’s bed like that. . . luckily, the police took all his things away with them.”

“You see anybody yet this morning?”

He shook his head, his mouth full of toast. “Nobody around except the police and the reporters out front. They certainly got here fast.”

“It’ll be in the afternoon papers,” I said wisely. “Have they found out anything yet about the way he was killed?”

“Don’t know. I couldn’t get much out of Greaves. As a matter of fact he got sore when I asked him some questions . . . said one amateur detective was enough for any murder case. Wonder who he meant?”

“ ‘Whom ’ he meant,” I said thoughtfully, aware that Harvard’s recent graduates were not as firmly grounded in English Usuage as my generation. “I expect he meant me.”

“You’re not a private detective, are you?” He looked at me fascinatedly, his eyes gleaming behind their thick lenses.

“No, but I’m an ex-newspaperman and I've been mixed up in a couple of things like this. Nothing quite so crazy, though.”

“Crazy? I’ve got a hunch it’s perfectly simple.”

“Well, that’s good to hear. Why keep us in suspense any longer.” My sarcasm was heavy; I am not at my best at breakfast.

“Maybe I won’t.” He looked mysteriously into his coffee cup. I found him as irritating as ever. He was my personal choice for murderer with Mary Western Lung a close second.

“I suppose you think Brexton did it because he’s jealous and wanted to kill not only his wife but her lover too, selecting a week end at his wife’s aunt’s house as the correct setting for a grisly tableau?”

“I don’t see what’s wrong with that theory . . . even if you do try to make it sound silly. There’s such a thing as spur-of-the moment murder, isn’t there? And this was the first chance he had of getting them both together.” Randan was complacent.

“Why wasn’t he cleverer about it? I know most painters are subaverage in intelligence but if he wanted to get away with these murders he couldn’t have picked a worse way of going about it.”

“Well, I’m not saying I think he did it. I’ll make you a bet, though: that I figure this out before either you or Greaves.” I told him I’d take him up on that: twenty dollars even money.

The morning was sunny and cool outdoors; the sea sparkled; the police were everywhere and Greaves, it developed, had moved over from Riverhead and was now staying in the house, in Brexton’s downstairs room ft he painter was assigned a room upstairs) and we were all told to stay close to the premises for the rest of the day.

I set to work on the alibis.

Both Mrs. Veering and Miss Lung, it developed, had gone to bed at the same time, about twelve thirty, leaving Allie and Brexton together in the drawing room. Randan was at the club. Claypoole took his last walk at midnight. None of the ladies had, as far as I could tell, an alibi. Allie of course was still knocked out and no one had been able to talk to her. I was beginning to wonder what Greaves had meant by perfect alibis being cheap. I discovered after lunch.

Brexton was treated like a leper at lunch. Everyone was keyed up, and frightened. It was easy for me to get him away from the others.

“Let’s take a walk,” I said. We were standing together on the porch overlooking the ocean.

“I wonder if they’ll let us ... or me,” said the painter.

“We can try.” We strolled out the door, pausing a moment on the terrace. New sand had been raked over the dark blood beneath the swing. The seat was calm. No visible sign of death anywhere to mar the day.

We walked, a little self-consciously, past the swing and down onto the sand. A plain-clothes man appeared quietly on the terrace, watching us. "I feel very important,” Brexton smiled dimly. “We’d better not walk far.”

In plain view of the detective, we sat down on the dunes a few yards from the house. “You’re a newspaperman, aren't you?” Brexton was direct.

“Not exactly. But I’m writing about this for the Globe."

"And you’d like to know how I happened to drown my wife and murder an old family friend on a quiet week end at the beach? That would be telling.” he chuckled grimly.

"Maybe something short of a confession then,” I said, playing along.

“Do you really think I did it?” This was unexpected.

I was honest. “I don't know. I don’t think so, for a number of reasons that would be of no use to you in court.”

“My own approach exactly.”

“Who do you think did it?”

He looked away. With one hand he traced a woman’s torso in the sand: I couldn’t help but watch the ease with which he drew, even without watching the lines . . . not at all like his abstractions. "I don't think I’ll say,” he said, finally. "It’s only a hunch. The whole thing’s as puzzling to me as it is to everybody else . . . more so since most of them are quite sure I did it. I’ll tell you one thing: I couldn’t have committed either murder.”

This had its desired effect. I looked at him with some surprise. "You mean...”

"Last night when Claypoole was killed, assuming it happened before one fifteen, just before your arrival on the beach with Randan, I was with Allie Claypoole.”

This of course was the big news; the reason for Greave’s gloom early that morning. “You told the police this?”

“With some pleasure."

“And they believed you?”

“All they have to do is ask Allie.”

“But she’s been hysterical or unconscious ever since, hasn’t she?”

He frowned slightly. “So they say. But when she’s herself again they’ll find out that there was no way on earth I, or Allie for that matter, could have killed her brother.”

We were both silent. I recalled as closely as I could everything which had happened the night before: had there been any sound when Randan and I circled the house? Any marks upon the sand? AU I could see in my mind though was that great dark house in the wild moonlight. Dark! I thought I’d found a hole in his story,

“If you were talking to Miss Claypoole how come you were in the dark? There wasn't a light on in the house when we got there.”

“We were on the porch, in the moonlight.”

“The porch overlooking the terrace?”

“No, on the south side, the golf course side.”

“I wonder where the police were.”

“One patrolled the house regularly while the other was looking for extra fuses which the butler had mislaid. The policeman had flashlights,” he added, “to round out the picture.”

“Picture of what is the question.”

“Picture of a murderer,” said Brexton softly and with one finger he stabbed the torso of the figure in the sand. I winced involuntarily.

“Is there anything you’d like me to say?” I asked, trying to make myself sound more useful than, in fact, I was. “I’ll be doing another piece tomorrow and...”

“You might make the point that not only was I with Miss Claypoole when her brother was killed but that my wife was in the habit of taking large quantities of sleeping pills at any time of the day or night and that four was an average dose if she was nervous. I’ve tried to tell the police this but they find it inconvenient to believe. Perhaps now they’ll take me seriously.”

“Mrs. Brexton was not murdered? She took the pills herself?”

“Exactly. If I know her, her death was as big a surprise to her as it was to the rest of us.”

“You don’t think she might have wanted to kill herself? to swim out where she knew she'd drown.”

“Kill herself? She planned to live forever! She was that kind.” But he wouldn’t elaborate and soon we went back to the house while the plain-clothes man watched us from the shadow of the porch.

That afternoon Liz paid a call and we strolled along the beach together to the Club; apparently the policeman didn’t much care what I did.

Liz was lovely and mahogany-dark in a two-piece affair which wasn’t quite a bathing suit but showed nearly as much. I was able to forget my troubles for several minutes at a time while watching her scuff along the sand, her long legs were slender and smooth with red paint flaking off the toenails as she kicked shells and dead starfish.

But she wouldn’t let me forget the murders for one minute. She had read my piece in the Glnbe which was just out, and all the other papers too. “I don’t think it’s safe,” she said after she’d breathlessly recited to me all the bloody details she’d read that afternoon.

“I don’t think so either, Liz, but what can I do?” I was

willing to milk this for all it was worth . . . the thought that she might be erotically excited by danger to the male (cf. behavior of human females in wartime) was appealing, but not precise. Liz, I think, has no imagination at all, just the usual female suspicion that everything's going to work out for the worst if some woman doesn’t step in and restore the status to its previous quo. There wasn't much room for her to step in, though, except to advise.

“Just leave, that’s all you have to do. They can’t stop you. The worst they can do is make you appear at the trial, to testify.” Th dramatic possibilities of this seemed to appeal to her; her knowledge of the technicalities were somewhat vague but she was wonderful when she was excited, her eyes glowing and her cheeks a warm pink beneath her tan.

I maneuvered her into the dunes just before we got to the Club. She was so busy planning my getaway that she didn’t know until too late that we were hidden from view by three dunes which, though they didn’t resemble the mountains of Idaho did resemble three pointed smooth breasts arranged in a warm triangle. She started to protest; then she just shut her eyes and we made love, rocking in the cradle of white hot sand, the sky a blue weight over our heads.

We lay for a while together, breathing fast, our hearts in unison quieting. I was relaxed for the first time in two tense days. Everything seemed unimportant except ourselves. But then the practical Liz was sitting up, arranging her two-piece garment which I’d badly mangled in a bit of. caveman play.

I waited for some vibrant word of love. Liz spoke: “You know, darling, there are such things as beds, old-fashioned as that may sound.”

It served me right, I decided, for expecting the familiar thick honey of love. “I bet it doesn’t scratch you as much as it does me,” I said, pulling up my old G.I. slacks, aware that sand had collected in private places.

“You know so little about women,” said Liz kindly. “I’ll get you a chart and show you how our anatomy differs from the male who is based on a fairly simple, even vulgar plumbing arrangement.”

“I suppose the female is just dandy.”

“Dandy?” Magnificent! We are the universe in symbol. The real McCoy. Gate to reality, to life itself. All men envy us for being able to bear children. Instead of walking around with all those exterior pipes, we . . .”

“Sexual chauvinism,” I said and rolled her back onto the sand but we did not make love this time. We just lay together for a while until the heat became unbearable; then both wringing wet, we ran to the Club a few yards down the beach.

The Ladyrock, by day, is a nautical-looking place with 72

banners flying, a poo! where children splash around, a terrace with awning for serious drinkers, rows of lockers and cabanas, a model Club on a model coast and full of model members, if not the pillars, at least the larger nails of the national community.

I was a little nervous about being introduced to Liz’s aunt who sat with a group of plump middle-aged ladies in pastel-flowered dresses and wide hats, all drinking tea under a striped umbrella. I was sure that our lust marked us in scarlet letters but, outside of the fact that on a fairly cool day we were both flushed and dripping sweat, there was apparently no remarkable sign of our recent felicities. Liz’s aunt said we were both too old to be running races on the sand and we were dismissed.

“Races she calls it!” I was amused as I followed Liz to her family’s cabana.

“I’m sure that’s what she thinks sex is anyway.” Liz was blithe. “They had no sense of sport in those days.” I don’t know why but I was shocked by this. I realized from hearsay that, although Liz was occasionally willing, she was far from being a sexual gymnast like so many girls of her generation. The real rub of course was to hear her talk the way I usually did. I resented her lack of romance, of all the usual messiness which characterizes even the most advanced modern lovers. I wondered if she was trying deliberately to pique me; if she was, she was succeeding. I was willing to do almost anything to get a rise out of her: just one soulful look, one sigh, one murmured: “I wish this could go on forever,” would have made me feel at home. Instead, she was acting like a jaded high school boy in his senior summer.

We washed up carefully in the shower of the cabana and then I put on a pair of her uncle’s trunks which hung sadly from my pelvis, to her delight. "I wish all men would wear them like that,” she said, pouring herself into a bright green creation which fitted her like scales do a snake. “Leaves more to the imagination.” And then she was off in a lightning break for the ocean. I didn’t overtake her until she was well into the first line of breakers.

We weren’t back on the beach until the cocktail crowd had arrived. Hundreds of brightly dressed men and women were gathering beneath the umbrellas. They formed in separate groups like drops of oil in a glass of water. Certain groups did not speak to others. Those with too much money were treated as disdainfully as those with too little. Even here in paradise you could tell the cherubim from the seraphim.

Liz’s aunt belonged to the top-drawer-but-one old guard: a group of middle-aged ladies who played bridge together, deplored the wicked influences which each year gained ground in the village, whispered about the depravities and

bad taste of those richer than they, smiled tolerantly at the nervous carefulness of those poorer and, in general, had themselves a good time while their husbands, purple of face, slow of mind, wheezed about golf scores in the bar.

Liz spared me her aunt and we found ourselves a vacant table close to the pool where we drank a newly invented cocktail, the work of the club bartender who was obviously some kind of genius: gin, white mint, mint leaves, a dash of soda. I looked forward to getting drunk. The sun was warm, though late. The salt dried with delicate tickle on my skin. Liz was beside me . . . everything was perfect except Dick Randan who joined us, wearing a jazzy pair of plaid trunks which set off the sallowness of his skin, the millions of visible sharp bones in his skinny body.

“Playing hooky, I see,” he said with a boom of heartiness in imitation of the old bucks at the bar. Uninvited, he sat down.

“How are you today, Miss Bessemer?” He turned his spectacles in her direction. I wanted to kick him.

“Fine, thank you,” and Liz gave him her best Vivien-Leigh-as-Scarlet-O’Hara smile.

“I suppose you heard about what happened to us last night after we left you.”

“Yes,” said Liz softly and she fluttered her eyelids shyly; she was giving him the business and I almost burst out laughing. Randan fell deeply.

“It’s been a terrible strain,” he said tensely, flexing one minuscule bicep.

“You must have nerves of absolute steel!” Liz trilled.

“Well, not exactly but I guess Pete here has told you a little what it’s like.”

“I should crack up in five minutes,” said that girl of stone with an adoring glance at both of us.

“It’s not easy,” said Randan with lips heroically thinned. I intervened. “Was I missed at the house?”

“No, the guard saw you coming over here with Miss Bessemer.”

“Oh?” I waited to hear more of what the guard saw but evidently he was a man of discretion. Randan went on: “So I thought I’d come over and see who was around. I was getting a bit tired of that atmosphere. You know Allie is still knocked out, don’t you?”

“I thought she was up by now.”

Randan shook his head. “No, she’s been raving, in an awful state. Nobody's allowed near her except Greaves. I finally went to him . . . you know, as next of kin, and demanded a report on her condition. He told me she hadn’t made sense since early this morning. I told him her place was in a hospital but he said she was under expert medical care, whatever that is around here.”

Liz stopped her teasing at last, enthralled as usual by 74

our situation. "Do you think they’ll really arrest Mr. Brexton?” she asked.

Randan shrugged. “It's hard to say. Some of us aren’t entirely sure he’s responsible,” he added weightily.

“Oh, but it has to be Mr. Brexton.”

“Why is that?” I was surprised by her confidence.

“Because only a man could have cut Mr. Claypoole’s throat. Peter hadn’t any reason to do that, so that leaves just Brexton.”

“And me,” said Randan, nodding. “I’m a suspect too.”

“Oh, but you were out that night; besides you wouldn’t kill your uncle . . . anyway even if you could’ve there was no way for you to kill Mrs. Brexton since you were in Boston...”

“Spending the day with friends,” added Randan stuffily. “Don’t think I didn’t have to prove to Greaves that I was up there when it happened.”

“So then you have two alibis, which rules you out. Only poor Mr. Brexton could’ve done both murders.”

“Very neat,” I said. “But suppose ‘poor Mr. Brexton’ has an alibi for the second murder and a good explanation for the first?”

“What’s that?" They both looked at me curiously.

“I have no intention of telling either of you anything until you read it tomorrow in the Globe. But I will say that I happen to know Brexton was with Allie Claypoole at the time of the murder.”

Randan looked at me with some interest. “Are you sure of this?”

“Certainly. And I think it rules him out.”

“Unless . . .” Liz paused. We both looked at her, a little embarrassed by the sudden consequences of what I’d said.

“Unless what?” Randan's voice was edgy.

“Unless, well, they did it together . . . which might explain why she went to pieces afterwards.” This fell cold and unexpected between us.

“Miss Claypoole is my aunt . . .” began Randan dryly.

Liz cut him short with luminous apologies. “I didn’t mean anything, really. I was just talking. I don’t know anything about anything; just what I’ve read and been told. I wouldn’t for the world suggest that she or anyone . . .” Liz brought the scene to a polite end. But we left her, after another round of drinks, with the definite sensation that something shocking had happened, that some strange vista had been unexpectedly opened.

We were halfway down the beach to the house before either of us spoke. It was Randan who broke the silence. “I can’t believe it,” he said finally.

“About your aunt and Brexton? Well, it was just one of Liz’s more hairbrained theories.”

“But the damned thing is it might make sense to that fool Greaves; I couldn’t let that happen.”

“I’m sure it won’t occur to him.”

“Won’t occur to him? What else will occur to him when he hears they were together? It leaves only three other possibilities: myself, Miss Lung and Mrs. Veering. I wasn’t around and I don’t think the two ladies have any motive. Brexton was trying to bluff you.”

I nodded. “I’ve taken that into account. It’s more than possible.”

Randan shook his head worriedly. “But that doesn’t make sense because when Allie recovers she’ll deny his story . . . if he’s made it up.”

I was soothing. “There’s probably more to the murder than we know. Maybe he was killed before the time supposed. Maybe Brexton zipped out of the house, murdered him and then came back in again, all under the pretext of going to the bathroom.”

“Too complicated.” But his face brightened as he considered these complexities. “Anyway we’ve got to look after Allie now. I’m going to suggest they put an extra guard on duty just to look after her.”

“Why?"

“Well, if he was bluffing he won’t want her to come to, will he?” The logic was chilling, and unarguable.

We found Greaves standing in his crumpled gray business suit along on the terrace, studying the swing.

“How’s my aunt?" asked Randan.

“Where the hell you been?” Greaves looked at him irritably. “I wanted to talk to you."

“I went over to the Club. Is she . .

“Still the same.”

“What did you want to ask me?”

“We’ll go into that after dinner.”

Randan then demanded a full-time guard for Allie which was refused on the grounds that two plain-clothes men in the house and a full-time nurse was quite enough. When Greaves demanded to know why protection was needed, Randan clammed up, then, with a look at me to implore silence, he went into the house to change for dinner.

Something occurred to me just as I was about to go inside myself. “I was wondering,” I said, “why you haven’t asked me any more questions about that note you found, the one you thought I’d manufactured for your amusement.”

“You said you didn’t, so that’s that.” But this fell flat.

“You think you know who fixed it, don’t you?” ■

“That’s possible.”

“The murderer?”

Greaves shook his head. “Claypoole,” he said.

I was more surprised by his admission than by his choice. “Why? Did you find fingerprints or something?”

“Just plain horse sense,” Greaves was confident. “Claypoole suspected all along Brexton was the murderer. He 76

didn’t dare come out in the open and accuse him because of family connections, scandals, things which would affect him too. Sc he sent the note to give us a clue. Unfortunately, it gave Brexton a clue too and he was able to kill Claypoole before he could tell us the inside story of what went on between the three of them, or maybe even the four of them. A story which we're unraveling pretty fast right now.”

This left me breathless to say the least. “You realize you’re accusing Brexton of murder?”

“That’s right.” Greaves was almost frivolous. I wondered what new evidence the police had unearthed. Greaves enlightened me. “It seems that Claypoole was first knocked unconscious; then he was dragged up to the terrace where his throat was cut.”

“How do you know he was dragged? Were there any marks on the sand?”

“Sand in his clothes. The tracks, if there were any, got rubbed out by the tide.”

I didn’t follow his reasoning. “Why do you think this implicates Brexton?”

Greaves only smiled.

I thought of something. “If Claypoole was first knocked unconscious, it means that a woman could’ve done it, doesn’t it? Isn’t that what a woman would do? And since she wasn’t strong enough to carry him, she’d be forced to drag the body up to the terrace where she’d then cut his throat with . . . with . . .”

“A knife belonging to Brexton. A knife covered with his fingerprints.” Greaves looked at me slyly, his case nearly done.