Strangers in Town: Three Newly Discovered Mysteries

Death By Water

He was old, but he didn't look as if he were about to die. For a man of his age, which couldn't have been less than seventy, he was doing very well for himself. He was sitting at the bar buying drinks for three young sailors, and he was the life of the party in more than the financial sense. In the hour or so that I had been watching him, he must have had at least five martinis, and it was long past dinner time.

"The old man can carry his liquor," I said to Al.

"Mr. Ralston you mean? He's in here every night from eight to midnight, and it never seems to get him down. Of course some nights he gets too much, and I have to take him home and put him to bed. But next day he's bright as ever."

"He lives in the hotel, eh?"

Al Sablacan was the hotel detective of the Valeria Pueblo, which charged ten dollars a day and up and, unlike many Los Angeles hotels, was worth it. Until a couple of years ago, he had been a private detective, like me, but he had finally succumbed to varicose veins and the promise of security in his old age.

"He's our oldest inhabitant," Al said. "He's got a bungalow over near the swimming pool. Been there about ten years, I guess, him and his wife."

"He doesn't act married."

Mr. Ralston had left the bar and was leaning on the grand piano watching a dark Spanish-looking girl who strummed a guitar and sang pseudo-Latin songs in a sweet soprano. She was making eyes at Mr. Ralston in an exaggerated way which was intended to indicate that she was humoring the old man. Mr. Ralston was making faces at her, as if to express passionate delight.

"You show them, Mr. Ralston," one of the sailors said from the bar. "There's life in the old boy yet."

"Most assuredly," said Mr. Ralston, in rich and gracious tones. He gave a dollar to the singer, and she began to play "The Isle of Capri." Mr. Ralston danced in a small circle between the bar and the piano, making expansively romantic gestures. "Most assuredly," he repeated, with a winning smile which made everyone in the bar smile with him. "I am a little old dried up man, but I have a youthful heart."

"Isn't he a card?" Al said to me. "His wife's an invalid, and he must do a lot of worrying about her, but you'd never know it. He's a card."

There was a recess in the music, and Mr. Ralston approached our table on light feet and with a glowing face. "And how are you this evening?" he said to Al in tones of cultivated solicitude. "I don't believe I've met your friend. I do hope you'll overlook the absence of a tie. I neglected to put one on after dinner. I don't know what I was thinking of." He gave a little laugh of indulgence at his boyish recklessness.

"Joe Rogers, Mr. Ralston," Al said. "Joe's a private detective. We used to work together."

"How utterly fascinating," Mr. Ralston said. "Do you mind if I join you for a moment? I have some guests at the bar, but I can continue to act as host by remote control, so to speak." He ordered a round of drinks for us and the sailors at the bar. His martini disappeared like ether in air.

"I've often thought," he said to me, "that the life of a detective would be an intensely interesting one. I rather fancy myself as a student of human nature, but my studies have been somewhat academic, you might say. Isn't it true that one sees deepest into human nature in moments of strain, moments of crisis, the kind of moments that must be delightfully frequent in your own life, Mr. Rogers?"

"You see deep enough into certain aspects of human nature, I guess. Some of the things I've seen I'd just as soon forget."

"Such as?" said Mr. Ralston, his eyes bright with curiosity and alcohol.

"Hatred. Greed. Jealousy. The three emotions that cause most crime. Impersonal love of inflicting pain is a fourth."

"Your word 'impersonal' is interesting," Mr. Ralston said. "It implies a concept which has occurred to me, that sadism need not have a sexual content. Don't you think, though, that there may be a fifth possibility? Surely people have stolen, even killed, for love. Or would your definition of love exclude the more criminal passions?"

"This is where I came in," Al Sablacan said to me. "I've got to mosey around a bit, anyway, and see that everything's O.K."

"Hate is usually a more compelling motive than love," I said when Al had excused himself. "I think you may be right about sadism, though. May I ask what your business is, or was, Mr. Ralston?"

His thin expressive face registered a touch of shame. "I have to confess I never had any. Hence, perhaps, the abstraction of my psychological concepts. At one time, of course, I took a good deal of interest in my investments. In recent years much of my time has been devoted to my wife. She is not well, you see."

"I'm sorry to hear it."

"No, Mr. Rogers, Beatrice is not at all well. She is afflicted with a progressive muscular atrophy of the legs which has deprived her of all locomotive power. Her thigh, Mr. Rogers, her thigh, is no thicker than my forearm." He pushed up his shirt sleeve to exhibit his thin arm. "I often thank whatever gods there be that I am able to provide her with the best of loving care."

The singer returned to the piano bench and began to play. Mr. Ralston rose with courtly grace and excused himself. "There's a number I've been intending to request all evening. I'm extremely fond of it."

The musician collected another of Mr. Ralston's dollars and began to play "In a Little Spanish Town." Mr. Ralston hummed the tune with her, meanwhile conducting an imaginary orchestra with great verve.

"That's the spirit, Mr. Ralston," one of the sailors yelled. "If you had any hair you'd look exactly like Stokowski."

"Do not judge me by the hairiness or otherwise of my scalp," Mr. Ralston said joyously. "Judge me by my musical imagination."

I finished my drink and went out to the lobby to look for Al.

Whenever I visited him, Al had a cot set up for me in his ground floor room. At half-past twelve I was getting ready to roll into it, feeling pleasantly comatose from half a dozen bottles of beer. Al had finished his midnight rounds a few minutes before, and was taking off his tie in front of the mirror. There was a knock on the door, and he put his tie back on.

It was one of the Filipino bellhops. "Mr. Sablacan," he said excitedly when Al opened the door. "There are men swimming in the swimming pool. I told them they must not swim there at night, but they just laughed at me. I think you must come and kick them out."

"O.K., Louie. Are they guests?"

"I don't think so, Mr. Sablacan. Only Mr. Ralston."

"Mr. Ralston? Is he there?"

"Yessir. He is bouncing on the diving board."

"Want to come along, Joe?"

Mr. Ralston interested me, and I put my shirt back on and went along. He was standing on the board shining a big flashlight on the pool. Three young men were chasing each other around in the water, diving like porpoises and blowing like grampuses. When we got closer we could see that Mr. Ralston had nothing on but a pair of striped swimming trunks. The young men had nothing on at all.

"Hey, Mr. Ralston," Al shouted. "You can't do this."

"A lady with a lamp shall stand in the great history of the land," said Mr. Ralston.

"He's drunk as a lord," Al said to me. "I guess this is one of the nights I put him to bed."

"You'll have to tell your friends to get out of there," he said to Mr. Ralston.

"They are my guests," Mr. Ralston shouted severely. "They expressed a wish to go swimming, and naturally I indulged them."

"Get the hell out of there!" Al roared across the water. "I'll give you ten seconds and then I call the Shore Patrol."

The threat worked. The three sailors scrambled out of the pool and began to put on their clothes. Mr. Ralston came toward us, swinging the beam of the flashlight like a long luminous rod.

"You're not being very genial, Mr. Sablacan," he said in a disappointed tone. "Boys will be boys, you know. In fact, boys will be boys will be boys."

"You're no boy, Mr. Ralston. And it's time for you to be in bed."

"He's O.K.," said one of the sailors, a dark boy with a pleasant smile. "He said it was all right for us to come in here. We sort of got the idea that it was his private pool."

Mr. Ralston made a diversion. "Indeed I am O.K.," he said. "I am in superb physical shape." He beat with a thin fist on his withered chest, which was sparsely covered with grey hairs. "What is more, I take it to be one of my perquisites to use this pool whenever I choose. My friends also."

The sailors had slipped away in the darkness. "Goodnight, Mr. Ralston," they called from the gate, and went out through the lobby. I helped Al to persuade Mr. Ralston to retire to his bungalow. We left him at the door and went to bed.

It was very early — scarcely dawn — when we were awakened by a knock at the door. Al rolled over and said sleepily, "Who is it?"

"It's Louie again, sorry Mr. Sablacan. We caught one of those sailors trying to get into the pueblo, and he says he wants to talk to you."

"O.K., O.K." Al rolled out of bed. "Hold him till I get there."

The dark young sailor was sitting in the lobby looking sheepish, with two bellhops standing over him.

"Where did you catch him?" Al said.

"He was trying to sneak through the lobby to the pueblo."

"My God!" Al yapped, his face bright red. "Don't tell me you were trying to go for another swim."

"I lost my I.D. card last night," the sailor said meekly. "I can't get back to the ship without it."

"How do I know that's true? We've had plenty of thieves around here."

"Mr. Ralston will vouch for me. I know his son."

"Mr. Ralston hasn't got a son."

"His stepson, I mean. Johnny Swain. We're on the same ship."

"We're not going to bother Mr. Ralston at this hour of the morning, but I'll give you one chance. We'll go and look for your I.D. card—"

"I think I must have dropped it when I took off my clothes."

It was there all right, lying in the grass beside the pool. James Denton, Seaman First Class, with his picture on it, looking sick.

"I should turn it in to the Shore Patrol and let you explain how you lost it," Al said.

"But you're not going to do that?"

"But I'm not going to do that. Just don't let me catch you taking advantage of Mr. Ralston, see?"

"I wouldn't take advantage of him," James Denton said. "He's a swell guy."

I had wandered to the edge of the pool and stood looking at the water, chlorine-green and smooth in the windless morning as polished agate. In the deepest corner I caught sight of something which shouldn't have been there. It was the pale body of a little old man, curled and still in his quiet corner like a foetus in alcohol.

James Denton had another swim after all. When he brought Mr. Ralston out of the pool, Mr. Ralston's temperature was that of the water.

"I guess this is partly my fault," James Denton said miserably. "We wouldn't let him come in last night, but I guess he came back after we left. He was a swell guy.

"Jeez, that chlorine gets the eyes," he said, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. But he was very young, and I suspected that he was crying.

"Could Mr. Ralston swim?" I said to Al.

"I don't know, I never saw him swim. This is a terrible thing, Joe. So far as I know nobody ever drowned in this pool before."

He looked at Mr. Ralston and looked away. Mr. Ralston, with his blue face and red striped trunks, looked very small and weirdly pathetic on the grass. Al covered his face with a handkerchief.

"Well," he said, "I guess I better call Mr. Whittaker and the cops. Mr. Whittaker won't like this."

Mr. Whittaker, who owned the Valeria Pueblo, didn't like it. He was a small, spry, sharp-faced man with grey hair receding from hollow veined temples and hands that were never still. In his left cheek a tic jerked continually with an almost audible click. Whenever his cheek jerked Mr. Whittaker smiled to hide it, thus giving the impression of a rodent who periodically snarled.

He arrived simultaneously with the police and fox-trotted about in the grass, frequently snarling. "A most unfortunate accident," Mr. Whittaker said. "Clearly a most unfortunate accident. I trust the whole thing will be handled with a minimum of adverse publicity."

"It happens to all of us," the police lieutenant said. "I'd just as well bump this way as any other way."

James Denton and Al told the story of the swimming party while Mr. Whittaker rubbed his hands together in neurotic glee.

"Clearly a most unfortunate accident," Mr. Whittaker said.

"Looks as if you're right," the police lieutenant said. "But we'll have to take the body for autopsy."

Mr. Ralston was taken away in a grey blanket.

"Well, I guess that's that," Mr. Whittaker said frantically. "We've done all we can do."

"Who gets his money?" I said to Al.

"Mrs. Ralston does," said Mr. Whittaker. "Mrs. Ralston is practically the sole beneficiary. Poor woman."

"Who else profits by it?" I said.

"His brother Alexander, who is also a resident of Los Angeles, and his stepson John Swain. But only small bequests."

"How much?"

"Ten thousand each. His wife's nurse, Jane Lennon, was to get a very small bequest, five hundred dollars, I believe."

"How do you know?"

The last question had gone too far, and Mr. Whittaker came to. "Just who are you, my man?"

"The name is Rogers. I'm a detective."

"Excuse me, Mr. Rogers," Mr. Whittaker snarled ingratiatingly. "I'm a bit on edge this morning. Mr. Ralston was a very dear friend of mine."

"Don't apologize to me. I'm only a private detective, and I have nothing to do with this case. Unless, of course, the hotel wants to hire me to investigate it."

"I don't see that it requires investigation. It's clearly — "

"How much money did Mr. Ralston leave?"

"A great deal," Mr. Whittaker said reverently. "Well over a million."

"The accidental death of a millionaire always requires investigation," I said. "I work quietly. For twenty dollars a day." I was interested in the case and perfectly willing to make a little money out of my interest if I could.

"He's hot stuff, Mr. Whittaker," Al said. "Joe and I used to work together. He's cheap at the price."

"Naturally money is no object." Mr. Whittaker polished his nails on the front of his Harris tweed jacket, examined them, polished them again. "No object whatever. Very well, Rogers. See what you can find out."

"Twenty dollars a day in advance," I said.

He gave me twenty dollars. I said, "How do you happen to know the provisions of Mr. Ralston's will?"

"I witnessed it. He made no secret of it. He loved his wife, and he wanted her to have his money."

"Did she love him?"

"Of course she loved him. Mrs. Ralston is a very fine and loyal woman. In spite of her grievous affliction, she made the old man an excellent wife."

"How old is she?"

"In her early forties. I can't see the point in these questions. I hope you're not going to stir up any trouble?"

"The trouble's all over," I said. "I'm just trying to understand it."

James Denton, the sailor, reminded us that he had been sitting silently on the grass ever since the police left. "Is it all right if I go?" he said. "I'm supposed to get back to the ship at San Pedro at nine, and I don't think I'll make it."

I said, "You're a friend of Mr. Ralston's stepson John Swain?"

He stood up and said, "Yessir."

"Why didn't John come along with you last night?"

"He was restricted to the ship, because he was absent over leave at Pearl. I was here before with John, and Mr. Ralston said he'd be glad to see me any time."

"If you're restricted to the ship, there's no way you can get off, is that right?"

"Yessir. There are guards on the gangways, and you have to report to the Master-at-Arms."

"What ship are you on?"

"APA 237."

"Is there a phone aboard?"

"Yessir." He gave me the number.

"If we need you we'll get in touch with you. Were the other two boys from the same ship?"

"Yessir." He gave me their names and left.

"Better call John Swain on the APA 237 and tell him to come here," I said to Al. "If they won't let him off, Mr. Whittaker will verify it."

"Yes, of course," said Mr. Whittaker, who seemed happier when he had no decisions to make.

Al went back to the main building to phone, and I asked Mr. Whittaker which was the Ralstons' bungalow. He pointed to a long low stucco building, half hidden in flowering shrubbery, about fifty yards from the pool.

"What's the setup in there?" I said.

"What do you mean?"

"How many rooms? How big a ménage? Sleeping arrangements and so on."

"Three bedrooms, a living room, and a kitchenette. Two bathrooms, one off Mr. Ralston's bedroom, the other shared by Mrs. Ralston and her nurse. Mrs. Ralston has a full-time nurse, of course. I don't know whether you knew she was a cripple."

"Yes, I know. The rooms are interconnecting, I suppose?"

"All but the bathrooms and kitchenette open on the central hallway. I could draw you a plan — "

"That's hardly necessary. I thought I'd just go and take a look. And isn't it about time somebody told Mrs. Ralston what happened to her husband?"

"By Jove, I forgot about that." He glanced at an octagonal platinum wristwatch which said seven-thirty. After a pause during which his cheek was active, he said, "I think I should consult her physician before breaking the news to Mrs. Ralston. In view of her physical condition. Excuse me."

He trotted stiffly away. I sauntered down the concrete walk to the Ralston bungalow. With all the Venetian blinds down it looked impassive yet vulnerable, like a face with closed eyes. For some reason I was leery of pressing the bell push, as if it might be a signal for something to jump out at me.

What jumped out at me was a very pretty brunette in her ripe late twenties and a fresh white nurse's uniform.

"Please don't make any noise," she said. "Mrs. Ralston is sleeping."

You look as if you could do with some sleep, I thought. There were blue-grey rings under her eyes and the flesh of her face drooped.

I said, "Miss Lennon?"

"Yes?" She stepped outside onto the little porch and closed the door behind her. I noticed that the concrete floor of the porch sloped up to the doorstep and down to the walk. Of course, Mrs. Ralston would have a wheelchair.

"My name is Rogers. Mr. Whittaker has hired me to investigate the death of Mr. Ralston."

"What?" The drooping flesh around her eyes and mouth slanted upward in lines of painful astonishment.

"Mr. Ralston was drowned in the swimming pool last night. Can you throw any light on the accident?"

"My God. This will kill Mrs. Ralston."

"It killed Mr. Ralston."

She looked at me narrowly. "When?"

"One or two in the morning, I'd say. The police will be able to give a better estimate when they complete the autopsy."

"I can't imagine," she said.

"You didn't see or hear anything?"

"Not a thing. Mrs. Ralston and I went to bed before midnight and slept right through. I just got up a few minutes ago. This will be a terrible shock to her."

"Do you sleep in the same room with her?"

"Adjoining rooms. I keep the door open at night in case she needs me for anything."

"Where did Mr. Ralston sleep?"

"His room is across the hall from ours. How on earth did he fall in?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out. Did he go in for swimming?"

"I've seen him swim. But he hardly went in at all the last few years. He was getting pretty old."

"How old?"

"Seventy-three."

"Thanks," I said. "Don't say anything to Mrs. Ralston just yet. Mr. Whittaker has gone to call her doctor."

"I won't say anything."

She went back into the bungalow, moving as quietly as a cat. I found my way to the dining room, where Al was just finishing his breakfast.

"I talked to John Swain," he said. "He's coming right over from Pedro in a taxi."

"How did he take it?"

"He was upset all right. But I guess it didn't floor him."

"Could anyone have gotten into the pueblo last night after we left Mr. Ralston?"

"We locked the gates at midnight. After that the only way to get in is through the lobby, and there's always somebody on duty there. Nobody but a guest or an employee could get in, unless he climbed the wall."

"Would that be hard?"

"You saw it." The wall was solid brick, about eight feet high, and topped with iron spikes. "Why? You're not thinking somebody got in and killed the old man?"

"It sounds impossible, doesn't it? But a man has to be pretty drunk to go swimming by himself after midnight at the age of seventy-three. Drunker than Mr. Ralston was."

"I don't know," Al said.

After I had eaten a quick breakfast we went to look for Mr. Whittaker. He was in his office sitting on the corner of the desk and swinging a leg in time like a metronome.

"Dr. Wiley will be here in a few minutes," he said. "He said we'd better wait for him."

I told him the nurse's story, that she'd slept through the night and hadn't heard a thing. Then Dr. Wiley arrived, a large cheerful man dressed for golf but carrying a medical bag.

"I don't anticipate any serious reaction," Dr. Wiley said. "But it's just as well to be prepared. There's no telling how a woman who is not at all well will react to a shock of this nature."

"I dread this," Mr. Whittaker said. "This is going to be an ordeal."

When we reached the bungalow Mrs. Ralston was sunning herself in front of it in a wheelchair, her legs swathed in a steamer rug. Even under the rug the lower half of her body looked pathetically feeble, but from the waist up she seemed at first glance to be a healthy woman of forty. Her bosom was impressive and her shoulders were handsome in a light linen blouse. Her face was strong and beautiful in a bold and striking way, but there were shadows in it. Until now, it seemed to me, she had held out against her disease, but now she was approaching the point of surrender. There were daubs of grey in her carefully dressed brown hair.

Yet she waived gaily at her doctor and showed her white even teeth in a smile. "I wasn't expecting you this morning," she said.

Al and I stood back and pretended to look at the trees while Whittaker and Dr. Wiley walked up to her without speaking. The nurse stood in the background looking worried.

"I have bad news for you," Dr. Wiley said. "Mr. Ralston — " He hesitated.

"Why, Mr. Ralston is sleeping in his room." She turned her head to the nurse and I saw the tendons in her neck. "Isn't Mr. Ralston still asleep, Jane?"

Jane bit her lower lip, which was full and purplish like a plum.

"Mr. Ralston is dead," the doctor said. "He drowned in the pool last night."

Mrs. Ralston's hands closed on the arms of her wheelchair. She sat bold upright, supported by her straining arms. The bony structure of her face became apparent, and the shadows there deepened.

"Poor Henry," she said. "How did it happen?"

Before anyone could answer she fell backward and covered her face with her long and graceful hands.

A young man in neat sailor blues appeared at the gate and came running across the grass towards us. He went by us like a blue streak, half-kneeled by the wheelchair and took hold of Mrs. Ralston's shoulders. "Mother," he said. "How are you feeling, darling?"

"Johnny," said Mrs. Ralston, removing her hands from her face, where the convulsions of grief gave way to the convulsions of maternal feeling. "My dear boy, I'm so glad you've come."

"Yes, how are you feeling, Mrs. Ralston?" said Dr. Wiley. "I think I should take your pulse."

He and Mr. Whittaker hovered around her for a few minutes more, attending to her physical comfort and telling her the details of her husband's death. Then they moved away to rejoin us, leaving her alone with her son and her nurse.

"An amazing woman," said Dr. Wiley. "She took it better than I could have expected."

"She has courage," said Mr. Whittaker.

"Courage is her middle name," said Dr. Wiley. "You'd never think to look at her that she has no more than three months to live."

"Three months to live?" I said.

"I've consulted with the leading specialists in the country," Dr. Wiley said. "Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is a progressive disease, and can never be fully arrested. She can't live more than three months, and she knows it. But what a stiff upper lip she maintains!"

Before we entered the hotel I looked back at Mrs. Ralston. Johnny Swain was still half-kneeling beside her, supporting her head on his shoulder. The nurse was still standing in the background, looking worried.

The police lieutenant who was handling the case was waiting in the lobby. He wanted to interview Mrs. Ralston and her nurse, and line up the other witnesses for the inquest.

"Is the autopsy completed?" I asked him.

"Dr. Shantz is working on it now."

"What's the dope so far?"

"A straight case of drowning. What did you expect?"

"A straight case of drowning," I said.

I took Al aside and told him, "I'm going down to the police lab and talk to Dr. Shantz. There are a couple of things you can be doing. Check Johnny Swain's alibi. Find out for sure whether he was aboard his ship last night. And see if you can find anything to shake the nurse's story that she spent the night in bed. She didn't look to me as if she did."

"Right," said Al, who seemed glad to have something to do.

I took my car out of the parking lot across the street and drove downtown to see Dr. Shantz. He was in his office when I got there, having completed the autopsy, but he still had on his surgical whites. With his domelike belly and three chins, he looked more like the popular idea of a chef than a medico-legal expert.

He said to me when I came in, "I didn't know you were interested in this cadaver, Joe."

"I'm always interested. I'm an occupational necrophile."

"I've got a beautiful Lysol burn in the back room. Want to see it?"

"Not just now, thanks. The hotel hired me to check on the Ralston accident. They don't like people drowning in their swimming pool. No signs of foul play, I suppose?"

"None whatever."

"Heart failure?"

"Nope, except in the sense that the heart usually stops when you die. The old man drowned. His lungs were full of water."

"No foreign substance of any kind?"

"You can't make a murder case out of this one, Joe. Mr. Ralston was killed by pure city water. I applied Gettler’s test to the blood content of the heart, and that's definite."

"When did he die?"

"It's hard to say exactly. His stomach was empty, except for some water, and he ate dinner at seven. His temperature was almost down to the temperature of the water. Between two and three in the morning, I'd say."

"That was about my guess," I said. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it. That Lysol burn will still be here tomorrow if you want to see it."

"Thanks again," I said and went out. I was almost certain now that a murder had been committed, since I'd never known Shantz to make a professional mistake. I decided to go and see Mr. Ralston's brother Alexander. He got ten thousand dollars out of Mr. Ralston's death. How badly did he need ten thousand dollars?

I found him in the phone book and drove to his address, a one-story stucco house on a middling street in South Los Angeles. He answered the doorbell, a scrawny man in his sixties with thin grey hair and stooping shoulders. His thick glasses made his eyes seem unnaturally large and solemn.

He spoke solemnly. "What can I do for you, sir?"

"Rogers is the name. I'm investigating your brother's death — "

"A sad affair. Johnny Swain phoned me not long ago. I didn't realize, however, that it was under police investigation."

"I'm working for the hotel. All they want to do is make sure it was an accident. You may be able to give me some information about your brother's habits?"

"Won't you step inside? I haven't seen much of Henry in recent years, but I'll tell you what I can. Don't get the notion that we weren't on good terms. We were. You may know that he left me ten thousand dollars in his will?"

He led me into the living room and waved me towards a shabby chesterfield. Except for the shelves of books which lined the walls, everything in the room was shabby. In his collarless shirt and drooping trousers, Alexander Ralston suited the room. I wondered if he was a lifelong victim of primogeniture.

He saw me looking around the room and said, "I'm afraid things are in rather a mess. I do my own housekeeping, you know. I won't attempt to deny that for a retired teacher like myself that ten thousand dollars will come in very handily, very handily indeed."

"You say you hadn't seen a great deal of your brother in recent years?"

"That's quite true. Our interests differed, you see. I like to think of myself as something of an intellectual, and Henry was by way of being a hedonist. I won't accuse him of having no intellectual interests, but they weren't sustained. In a word, his money spoilt him for the life of the spirit."

"Where did he get it?"

"His money? Of course, you must be struck by the contrast between our ways of life. It was really quite a comic situation — I pride myself on being able to laugh at it still, though in a way I was the butt of the joke." He smiled wanly and stroked his one day's beard.

I began to suspect that I was dealing with an eccentric. "I don't quite get the point," I said.

"Naturally you don't. I haven't told you the situation. Henry and I had a very devout aunt who married well and in the course of time became a very wealthy and devout widow. Henry had never been given to religiosity, but Aunt Martha cracked the whip of gold over him, so to speak, and persuaded him to enter the church when he was in his early twenties. I was a freshman in college at the time, and I was a militant atheist. I still am, sir. Anyway, Aunt Martha left all her money to Henry.

"It's just as well, I suppose," he said after a pause. "Over-much money would have suited ill with the austerities of moral philosophy and metaphysics. Still, that ten thousand dollars will come in very handily."

"I understand that Mrs. Ralston will get the bulk of his fortune."

"Of course she will. And it's only fitting. She married him for that purpose, I believe."

"How long had they been married?"

"Ten years. She was about thirty at the time, and a very pretty piece — I use the word in its seventeenth-century sense. Within six months of their marriage she had become a hopeless invalid. I've suspected, perhaps without justification, that Mrs. Ralston knew at the time of their marriage that she had the disease, and deliberately inveigled Henry into it. He was really an innocent-hearted man. She was a widow without means, you see, and had a young son to support. Even if that is the case, however, I don't begrudge her the money. It kept a sick woman in comfort and brought up a fatherless boy, and thus served a useful purpose, don't you think?"

I said, "Yes."

"There's one other thing," Alexander Ralston said, his exaggerated eyes regarding me blandly through his glasses. "This is an absurd hypothesis, but I think I should introduce it. Assuming that I was intending to kill my brother for his money, I should certainly have waited a few months. His death at the present time has netted me ten thousand dollars. After Mrs. Ralston's death, which you may or may not know is imminent, Henry's death would have netted me incomparably more. His entire fortune, in fact."

I am not easily embarrassed, but I was embarrassed. "I never thought of such a thing," I said unconvincingly.

"Please don't be uncomfortable. It's your duty to think of such things. But now if you'll excuse me, I have some work to do."

I told him it had been a pleasure to meet him, and went away.

When I got back to the Valeria Pueblo, Al was in his room reading a newspaper. He put it down when I opened the door.

"The accident didn't make much of a splash," he said. "Say, that's a crack, isn't it? But I notice there's nobody in swimming in the pool today."

"There will be tomorrow. In a week it'll be forgotten. What about John Swain's alibi?"

"He was on the ship all night," Al said. "He played poker till 4 a.m., and has four buddies to prove it. I talked to one on the phone."

"That lets him out, then. Did you get anything on Jane Lennon?"

He winked and smiled lasciviously. "You're damn right. One of the black girls who cleans the bungalows gave me the straight dope on her. I knew that dame had too much to be going to waste."

"Spill it."

"She's got a boy friend in one of the other bungalows. Her racket is to wait until Mrs. Ralston goes to sleep, and then slip out for a few hours. Mrs. Ralston takes sleeping powders, see, so the nurse thought she was safe enough. But she was supposed to be on twenty-four hour duty, and she was taking a chance."

"Where was Jane Lennon last night?"

"With her boyfriend. The black girl saw her going back to her own bungalow just before dawn. But I don't see how you're going to use that against her. It gives her a better alibi than she had before."

I said, "Is Mrs. Ralston's wheelchair self-propelling? I mean can she move it herself?"

"Sure, if she wants to. But the nurse usually pushes her. My God, you're not suspecting Mrs. Ralston now?"

I said nothing.

"You're a sap if you are," Al said. "She had no motive. The dame's going to be dead in a couple of months."

"That's right," I said. "Let's go and see Mrs. Ralston."

"Look here, you take it easy," Al said. "You'll make trouble for both of us."

"The widow should be informed that her husband was murdered," I said. "I'm going to inform the widow."

Mrs. Ralston, John Swain, and Jane Lennon were sitting at an outside table in the patio. They had just finished their lunch, and a waiter was removing their debris. When he had glided away with his loaded tray, I stepped up to the table with Al beside me.

"May we join you for a moment?" I said.

"Why certainly." Mrs. Ralston looked up at me brightly, and with a movement of her right hand turned her wheelchair in a quarter circle.

I sat down facing her and said, "Last night about a quarter to one Mr. Sablacan and I left your husband at the door of your bungalow and he presumably went to bed. Since he had been drinking he probably fell into a deep alcoholic slumber. An hour or so later he was drowned. This morning I found him in the swimming pool."

"I know those things," Mrs. Ralston said. "Is there any point in repeating them to me?"

"This is very painful for my mother," John Swain said. "I'll have to ask you to put a stop to it." He dropped his cigarette on the tiles and ground it angrily under his heel.

"I have reason to believe," I said, "that Mr. Ralston was not drowned in the swimming pool."

Mrs. Ralston slumped backward and covered her face with her hands. John Swain stood up and leaned across the table towards me looking as if he would like to bite me.

"This is too much!" he said. "I'll see Mr. Whittaker about this." He marched away into the hotel.

"O.K.," I said to Jane Lennon. "Take her away. I'd just as soon be telling it to the police."

Mrs. Ralston removed her hands. She looked old, and I felt sorry for her. I felt sorrier for Mr. Ralston.

"The police?" she said.

"Somebody drowned him in the bathtub," I said. "He was very light."

Mrs. Ralston picked up a glass ashtray from the table, and threw it at my face. It struck my forehead and made a gash there. While I was dabbing at the blood with a handkerchief, Mrs. Ralston called me many unusual names in a loud voice which attracted the attention of everyone in the patio. Jane Lennon wheeled her away. I was glad to see her go, because Mrs. Ralston's face had become very old and ugly.

Mr. Whittaker came running out of the hotel with John Swain at his heels.

"What's all this!" he cried.

"Call the police again," I said. "Mrs. Ralston seems ready to confess."

An hour later I was sitting with Al in his room sipping my first beer of the day and wishing away a headache.

"You took a hell of a chance," Al said.

"No, I didn't. I made no accusations. All I said was that somebody had drowned him in the bathtub. Mrs. Ralston said the rest."

"I still think it's lucky for you she broke down and confessed. You didn't have any evidence."

"I had one piece of evidence," I said. "The whole case hung on it. The water in Mr. Ralston's lungs was pure city water. He couldn't have inhaled it in the pool, because the pool water has a good deal of chlorine in it. A bathtub was practically the only alternative."

"I don't see how she did it," Al said.

"Morally, it's hard to see. Murder always is. Physically, it was feasible enough. He weighed scarcely a hundred pounds. There was nothing the matter with her arms and shoulders, and a wheelchair can be a pretty useful vehicle. She simply wheeled him to the bathtub, held his face under water until he stopped breathing, wheeled him out to the pool, and dumped him in. It must have been difficult, and she stood a chance of being caught at it, but she hadn't much to lose."

"And nothing at all to gain. That's what I don't get. What good is a million dollars to a dame that's going to die any day?"

"She wanted to leave it to her son," I said. "He'd have been cut off from all that money if she had died before her husband. Ever since the doctors told her she was going to die, she must have been waiting for her chance. She probably caught on to the nurse's trick long ago, and bided her time, waiting to use it. That swimming party last night gave her her opportunity. Mother love is a wonderful thing."

I thought of another wonderful thing then, and I began to laugh though it wasn't very funny. In California a murderess can't inherit her victim's property. So Johnny Swain is still as far away from a million dollars as the rest of us.