A Kiss Before Dying (20 page)

‘Which means?’ Kingship challenged.

‘Which means that he must have been involved with Dorothy in some way. Why else would he conceal it?’ Gant looked down at the book in his lap. ‘There was a man who wanted Dorothy out of the way because he had got her pregnant—’

Kingship stared at him. ‘You’re back to the same thing! Someone killed Dorothy, then killed Ellen. You’ve got this – this cockeyed moving picture theory and you don’t want to admit—’ Gant was silent. ‘Bud?’ Kingship asked incredulously. He sat back. He shook his head, smiling pityingly. ‘Come on, now,’ he said. ‘That’s crazy. Just crazy.’ He kept shaking his head. ‘What do you think that boy is, a maniac?’ and smiling, ‘You’ve got this crazy idea—’

‘All right,’ Gant said, ‘it’s crazy. For the time being. But if he didn’t tell Marion he went to Stoddard, then in some way he must have been involved with Dorothy. And if he was involved with Dorothy, and then Ellen, and now with Marion – then he was goddamned good and determined to marry one of your daughters! Any one!’

The smile left Kingship’s face slowly, draining it of expression. His hands were motionless on the edge of the desk.

‘That
isn’t
so crazy, I take it.’

Kingship removed his glasses. He blinked a couple of times and then straightened up. ‘I have to speak to Marion,’ he said.

Gant looked at the telephone.

‘No,’ Kingship said emptily. ‘She’s had her phone disconnected. She’s giving up her apartment, staying with me until the wedding.’ His voice faltered. ‘After the honeymoon they’re moving into an apartment I’m furnishing for them – Sutton Terrace. Marion didn’t want to accept it at first, but he convinced her. He’s been so good with her – made the two of us get along so much better.’ They looked at each other for a moment; Gant’s eyes steady and challenging, Kingship’s apprehensive.

Kingship stood up.

‘Do you know where she is?’ Gant asked.

‘At her place – packing things.’ He put on his jacket. ‘He
must
have told her about Stoddard.’

When they came out of the office Miss Richardson looked up from a magazine.

‘That’s all for today, Miss Richardson. If you’ll just clear my desk.’

She frowned with frustrated curiosity. ‘Yes, Mr Kingship. Merry Christmas.’

‘Merry Christmas, Miss Richardson.’

They walked down a long corridor, on the walls of which were black and white photographs, matted and mounted between plates of glass held together by copper brackets at top and bottom. There were photographs of underground and open-pit mines, smelters, refineries, furnaces, rolling mills, and artistic close-ups of tubing and copper wire.

Waiting for the elevator Kingship said, ‘I’m sure he told her.’

‘Gordon Gant?’ Marion said, exploring the name, when they had shaken hands. ‘Don’t I know that name?’ She backed into the room, smiling, one hand finding Kingship’s and drawing him with her, the other rising to the collar of her blouse and fingering the golden pearl-starred brooch.

‘Blue River,’ Kingship’s voice was wooden as when he had performed the introduction, and his eyes were not quite on Marion’s. ‘I think I told you about him.’

‘Oh yes. You knew Ellen, wasn’t that it?’

‘That’s right,’ Gant said. He shifted his hand farther down the spine of the book at his side, to a spot where the leatherette wasn’t damp, wishing he hadn’t been so damned eager when Kingship had asked him to come up; the
Times
photo of Marion had offered no hint in its dotted greys of the lucency of her eyes, the radiance of her cheeks, the halo of I’m-getting-married-Saturday that glowed all over her.

She gestured at the room despairingly. ‘I’m afraid there isn’t even a place to sit down.’ She moved towards a chair on which some shoe boxes were piled.

‘Don’t bother,’ Kingship said. ‘We just stopped by. Only for a minute. A lot of work waiting for me at the office.’

‘You haven’t forgotten tonight, have you?’ Marion asked. ‘You can expect us at seven or so. She’s arriving at five, and I guess she’ll want to stop at her hotel first.’ She turned to Gant. ‘My prospective mother-in-law,’ she said significantly.

Oh Lord, Gant thought, I’m supposed to say, ‘You’re getting married?’ ‘Yes, Saturday.’ ‘Congratulations, good luck, best wishes!’ He smiled wanly and didn’t say anything. Nobody said anything.

‘To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?’ Marion inquired, a curtsey in her voice.

Gant looked at Kingship, waiting for him to speak.

Marion looked at both of them. ‘Anything special?’

After a moment, Gant said, ‘I knew Dorothy, too. Very slightly.’

‘Oh,’ Marion said. She looked down at her hands.

‘She was in one of my classes. I go to Stoddard.’ He paused. ‘I don’t think Bud was ever in any of my classes though.’

She looked up. ‘Bud?’

‘Bud Corliss. Your—’

She shook her head, smiling. ‘Bud was never at Stoddard,’ she corrected him.

‘He was, Miss Kingship.’

‘No,’ she insisted amusedly, ‘he went to Caldwell.’

‘He went to Stoddard,
then
to Caldwell.’

Marion smiled quizzically at Kingship, as though expecting him to offer some explanation for the obstinacy of the caller he had brought.

‘He was at Stoddard, Marion,’ Kingship said heavily. ‘Show her the book.’

Gant opened the year-book and handed it to Marion, pointing to the picture.

‘Well for goodness’ sake,’ she said. ‘I have to apologize. I never knew …’ She glanced at the cover of the book. ‘Nineteen-fifty.’

‘He’s in the forty-nine year-book too,’ Gant said. ‘He went to Stoddard for two years and then transferred to Caldwell.’

‘For goodness’ sake,’ she said. ‘Isn’t that funny? Maybe he knew Dorothy.’ She sounded pleased, as though this were yet another bond between her and her fiancé. Her eyes slipped back to his picture.

‘He never mentioned it to you at all?’ Gant asked, despite Kingship’s prohibitive headshakings.

‘Why, no, he never said a—’

Slowly she looked up from the book, becoming aware for the first time of the strain and discomfort of the two men. ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked curiously.

‘Nothing,’ Kingship said. He glanced at Gant, seeking corroboration.

‘Then why are the two of you standing there as if—’ She looked at the book again, and then at her father. There was a tightening moment in her throat. ‘Is this why you came up here, to tell me this?’ she asked.

‘We – we only wondered if you knew, that’s all.’

‘Why?’ she asked.

‘We just wondered, that’s all.’

Her eyes cut to Gant. ‘Why?’

‘Why should Bud conceal it,’ Gant asked, ‘unless—’

Kingship said, ‘Gant!’

‘
Conceal
it?’ Marion said. ‘What kind of a word is that? He didn’t
conceal
it; we never talk about school much, because of Ellen; it just didn’t come up.’

‘Why should the girl he’s marrying not know he spent two years at Stoddard,’ Gant rephrased implacably, ‘unless he was involved with Dorothy?’

‘
Involved?
With
Dorothy?
’ Her eyes, wide with incredulity, probed into Gant’s, and then swung slowly, narrowing, to Kingship. ‘What is this?’

Kingship’s face flickered with small uneasy movements, as though dust were blowing at it.

‘How much are you paying him?’ Marion asked coldly.

‘Paying him?’

‘For snooping!’ she flared. ‘For digging up dirt! For
inventing
dirt!’

‘He came to me of his own accord, Marion!’

‘Oh, yes, he just
happened
to pop up!’

Gant said, ‘I saw the article in the
Times.
’

Marion glared at her father. ‘You swore you wouldn’t do this,’ she said bitterly. ‘Swore! It would
never
enter your mind to ask questions, to investigate, treat him like a
criminal.
Oh, no, not much!’

‘I
haven’t
been asking questions,’ Kingship protested.

Marion turned her back. ‘I thought you changed,’ she said. ‘I really did. I thought you liked Bud. I thought you liked
me.
But you can’t—’

‘Marion—’

‘No, not if you’re doing this. The apartment, the job – and all along
this
has been going on.’

‘
Nothing
is going on, Marion. I swear—’

‘Nothing? I’ll tell you
exactly
what’s going on.’ She faced him again. ‘You think I don’t know you? He was “involved” with Dorothy – is he supposed to be the one who got her in trouble? And he was “involved” with Ellen, and now he’s “involved” with me–all for the money, all for your precious money. That’s what’s going on–
in your mind!
’ She thrust the year-book into his hands.

‘You’ve got it wrong, Miss Kingship,’ Gant said. ‘That’s what’s going on in
my
mind, not your father’s.’

‘See?’ Kingship said. ‘He came to me of his own accord.’

Marion stared at Gant. ‘Just who are you? What makes this your business?’

‘I knew Ellen.’

‘So I understand,’ she snapped. ‘Do you know Bud?’

‘I’ve never had the pleasure.’

‘Then will you please explain to me what you’re doing here, making accusations against him behind his back!’

‘It’s quite a story—’

‘You’ve said enough, Gant,’ Kingship interrupted.

Marion said, ‘Are you jealous of Bud? Is that it? Because Ellen preferred him to you?’

‘That’s right,’ Gant said drily. ‘I’m consumed with jealousy.’

‘And have you heard of the slander laws?’ she demanded.

Kingship edged towards the door, signalling Gant with his eyes. ‘Yes,’ Marion said, ‘you’d better go.’

‘Wait a minute,’ she said as Gant opened the door. ‘Is this going to stop?’

Kingship said, ‘There’s nothing
to
stop, Marion.’

‘Whoever’s behind it’ – she looked at Gant – ‘it’s got to stop. We never talked about school. Why should we, with Ellen? It just never came up.’

‘All right, Marion,’ Kingship said, ‘all right.’ He followed Gant into the hall and turned to pull the door closed.

‘It’s got to stop,’ she said.

‘All right,’ he hesitated, and his voice dropped. ‘You’re still coming tonight aren’t you, Marion?’

Her lips clenched. She thought for a moment. ‘Because I don’t want to hurt Bud’s mother’s feelings,’ she said finally. Kingship closed the door.

They went to a drugstore on Lexington Avenue, where Gant ordered coffee and cherry pie and Kingship, a glass of milk.

‘So far, so good,’ Gant said.

Kingship was gazing at a paper napkin he held. ‘What do you mean?’

‘At least we know where we stand. He didn’t tell her about Stoddard. That makes it practically certain that—’

‘You heard Marion,’ Kingship said. ‘They don’t talk about school because of Ellen.’

Gant regarded him with slightly lifted eyebrows. ‘Come on,’ he said slowly, ‘that may satisfy
her
; she’s in love with him. But for a man not to tell his fiancée where he went to college—’

‘It isn’t as if he lied to her,’ Kingship protested.

Sardonically Gant said, ‘They just didn’t talk about school.’

‘Considering the circumstances, I think that’s understandable.’

‘Sure. The circumstances being that he was mixed up with Dorothy.’

‘That’s an assumption you have no right to make.’

Gant stirred his coffee slowly and sipped it. He added more cream and stirred it again. ‘You’re afraid of her, aren’t you?’ he said.

‘Of Marion? Don’t be ridiculous.’ Kingship set his glass of milk down firmly. ‘A man is innocent until he’s proved guilty.’

‘Then we’ve got to find proof, haven’t we?’

‘You see? You’re assuming he’s a fortune hunter before you’ve started.’

‘I’m assuming a hell of a lot more than that,’ Gant said, lifting a forkful of pie to his mouth. When he had swallowed it he said, ‘What are you going to do?’

Kingship was looking at the napkin again. ‘Nothing.’

‘You’re going to let them get married?’

‘I couldn’t stop them even if I wanted to. They’re both over twenty-one, aren’t they?’

‘You could hire detectives. There are four days yet. They might find something.’

‘Might,’ Kingship said. ‘If there’s anything to find. Or Bud might get wind of it and tell Marion.’

Gant smiled. ‘I thought I was being ridiculous about you and Marion.’

Kingship sighed. ‘Let me tell you something,’ he said, not looking at Gant. ‘I had a wife and three daughters. Two daughters were taken from me. My wife I pushed away myself. Maybe I pushed one of the daughters too. So now I have only one daughter. I’m fifty-seven years old and I have one daughter and some men I play golf and talk business with. That’s all.’

After a moment Kingship turned to Gant, his face set rigidly. ‘What about you?’ he demanded. ‘What is your real interest in this affair? Maybe you just enjoy chattering about your analytical brain and showing people what a clever fellow you are. You didn’t have to go through that whole rigmarole, you know. In my office, about Ellen’s letter. You could have just put the book on my desk and said, “Bud Corliss went to Stoddard.” Maybe you just like to show off.’

‘Maybe,’ Gant said lightly. ‘Also maybe I think he might have killed your daughters and I’ve got this quixotic notion that murderers should be punished.’

Kingship finished his milk. ‘I think you’d better just go back to Yonkers and enjoy your vacation.’

‘White Plains.’ Gant scraped together the syrupy remains of the pie with the side of his fork. ‘Do you have ulcers?’ he asked, glancing at the empty milk glass.

Kingship nodded.

Gant leaned back on his stool and surveyed the man beside him. ‘And about thirty pounds overweight, I’d say.’ He put the red-clotted fork in his mouth and drew it out clean. ‘I should estimate that Bud has you figured for ten more years, tops. Or maybe he’ll get impatient in three or four years and try to hurry you on.’

Kingship got off his stool. He pulled a dollar from a money-clipped roll and put it on the counter. ‘Goodbye, Mr Gant,’ he said, and strode away.

The counterman came over and took the dollar. ‘Anything else?’ he asked.

Gant shook his head.

He caught the 5.19 for White Plains.