Death Likes It Hot (11 page)

“He’s fairly sure now. Are you?”

“I don’t know what to think.”

“What was between your brother and Mildred?” I asked this all in one breath, to take her by surprise; it did.

Her eyelids fluttered with alarm; she frowned, taken aback. “What … what makes you think anything.…”

“Mrs. Veering,” I lied. “She told me that, years ago.…”

“That bloody fool!” She literally snarled; but then she was in control again. She even managed to laugh convincingly to cover up her sudden lapse. “I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “It just seems so unnecessary, raking up family skeletons. The fact are simple enough: Mildred was engaged to marry my brother. Then she met Brexton and married him instead. That’s all. My brother was devoted to her and not too friendly with Brexton, though they got on … that’s all there is to it.”

“Why didn’t she marry your brother?”

She was evasive. “I suppose Brexton was more glamorous to her.…”

“Did
you
like the idea of his marrying her?”

“I can’t think that that has anything to do with it, Mr. Sargeant.” She looked at me coldly.

“I suppose it doesn’t. I’m sorry. It’s just that if I’m to be used as a punching bag by a murderer, I’d like to know a little something about what’s going on.”

“I’m sorry.” She was quick to respond. “I didn’t mean to be unpleasant. It’s just that it’s a sore subject with all of us. In fact, I didn’t even want to come down here for the week end but Fletcher insisted. He was very fond of Mildred, always.”

I was slowly getting an idea of the relationships involved, as much from what she didn’t say as what she did.

The butler called me from the terrace. Liz was on the telephone. I answered it in the hall.

“Darling, are you all right?” Her voice was anxious.

“Don’t tell me you heard.…”

“Everything! My aunt told me this morning how, when you came home last night, you were
stabbed.
I’ve been trying to get you for two hours but the line’s been busy. Are you all right? Where.…”

I told her what had happened, marveling at the speed with which news spread in that community. I supposed the servants had passed it on since I knew no one in the house, none of the guests, would have breathed a word of it.

She was relieved that I hadn’t been stabbed. She was also alarmed. “I don’t think you should stay another night in that awful place, Peter. No, I mean it, really. It’s perfectly apparent that a criminal maniac is on the loose and.…”

“And when do I see you?”

“Oh. Well, what about late tonight? around midnight. I’m tied up with the family till then but afterward I’m invited to Evan Evans’ house … the abstract sculptor. I could meet you there. It’s open house.” I took down the address and then, after promising her I wouldn’t get in the way of any more metal objects, she rang off.

I wandered back to the beach. From upstairs I could hear the clatter of Mary Western Lung’s feverish typewriter. The door to Brexton’s room was shut. Mrs. Veering was writing letters in the sunroom.

Everything was peaceful. Allie Claypoole was talking to a stranger when I rejoined her on the beach. “Oh, Mr. Sargeant, I want you to meet Dick Randan … he’s my nephew.”

The nephew was a tall gangling youth of twenty odd summers: he wore heavy spectacles and a seersucker suit which looked strangely out of place on that glaring beach. I made the expected comment about what a young aunt Allie was, and she agreed.

“Dick just drove down from Cambridge today.…”

“Heard what had happened and came down to make sure everything was all right.” His voice was as unprepossessing as the rest of him. He sat like a solemn owl on the sand, his arms clasping bony knees. “Just now got here … quite a row,” he shook his head gloomily. “Bad form, this,” he added with considerable understatement.

“Dick’s taking his Master’s degree in history,” said Allie as though that explained everything. “You better run in the house, dear, and tell Rose you’re here.”

“Oh, I’ll stay in the village,” said the young historian.

“Well, go in and say hello anyway. I’m sure she’ll ask you to dinner.”

Wiping sand off his trousers, the nephew disappeared into the house. Allie sighed, “I should’ve known Dick would show up. He loves disaster. I suppose it’s why he majored in history … all those awful wars and things.”

“Maybe he’ll cheer us up.”

“It’ll take more than Dick I’m afraid.”

“You’re not much older than he, are you?”

She smiled. “Now that’s what I call a nice thing to hear. Yes, I’m a good ten years older.” Which made her thirty one or two, I figured with one of those rapid mental computations which earned me the reputation of a mathematical failure in school.

Then we went in swimming, keeping close to shore.

Miss Lung and I were the first to arrive for cocktails and I mixed us martinis. She was in an exotic Japanese kimono-type dress which made her look even more repellent than usual. She thought she was cute as a button though.

“Well, looks like we’re the first down. The vanguard.” I gave her a drink and agreed. I sat down opposite her though she’d done everything but pull me down beside her on the couch. I realize that, contrary to popular legend, old maids’ traditional lechery is largely an invention of the male but I can safely say that, in Miss Lung’s case, masculine irreverence was justified.

She sipped her martini; then, after spilling half of it on the rug, put it down and said, “I hope you’re recovered from your encounter with that unknown party.”

I said I was.

“I could hardly keep my mind on ‘Book-Chat.’ I was doing a piece on how strange it is that all the best penwomen with the
possible exception of Taylor Caldwell possess three names.”

I let the novelty of this pass. I was saved from any further observations by the appearance of Claypoole. He was pale and preoccupied. He looked as though he hadn’t slept in a week.

He made conversation mechanically. “The whole town’s buzzing,” he said. “I was down at the theater seeing the pictures there … some good things, too, by the way, though of course Paul would say they’re trash.”

“What’s trash? What would I call trash?” Brexton appeared in the doorway; he was even smiling, some of his old geniality returning. I wondered why. At the moment his neck was half inside a noose.

Claypoole looked at him bleakly. “I was talking about the pictures down at the John Drew Theater.”

“Oh, they’re trash all right,” said Brexton cheerfully, mixing himself a drink. “You’re absolutely right, Fletcher.”

“I liked them. I said you’d say they were.…”

“What they are. Well, here’s to art!”

“Art? I love it!” Mrs. Veering and Dick Randan came in together; the former was her usual cheery self, high as a kite. She introduced the Claypoole connection to Miss Lung and Brexton neither of whom knew him. The penwoman shifted her affections abruptly from me to the young historian. “So you’re at Harvard?” she began to purr and the youth was placed beside her on the couch. That was the end of him for that evening.

Allie was the last to join us. She sat by me. “Well, here we all are,” she said irrelevantly.

The company was hectically gay that night. We were all infected by this general mood. Everyone drank too much. I was careful, though, to watch and listen, to observe. I knew that someone in that room had clubbed me with possible intent to kill. But who? and why?

I watched their faces. Brexton was unexpectedly cheerful. I wondered if he’d arranged himself an alibi that afternoon while locked in his room. On the other hand, Claypoole
seemed to be suffering. He had taken the death of Mildred harder than anyone. Something about him bothered me. I didn’t like him but I didn’t know why. Perhaps it was the strange relationship with his sister … but that was no business of mine.

Miss Lung responded to whatever was the mood of any group. Her giggles now rose like pale echoes of Valkyrie shrieks over the dinner table while Mrs. Veering, in a mellow state, nodded drunkenly from time to time. Randan stared about him with wide eyes, obviously trying to spot the murderer, uninfected by the manic mood.

It was like the last night of the world.

Even I got a little drunk finally although I’d intended to keep a clear head, to study everyone. Unfortunately, I didn’t know what to study.

We had coffee in the drawing room. While I was sitting there, talking absently to the nephew about Harvard, I saw Greaves tiptoe quietly across the hall. I wondered what he was up to.

“Did the murderer really slug you?” asked Randan suddenly, interrupting me in the middle of a tearful story about the old days when Theodore Spencer was alive and Delmore Schwartz and other giants brooded over the university.

“Yes.” I was short with him; I was getting tired of describing what had happened to me.

“Then you must possess some sort of information which he wishes to destroy.”

“Me? or the information?” Randan had expressed himself about as clearly as most history majors do.

“Both, presumably.”

“Who knows?” I said. “Anyway he’s wasting his time because I don’t know a thing.”

“It’s really quite exciting.” His eyes glittered black behind the heavy spectacles. “It presents a psychological problem too. The relationships involved are.…” I got away as soon as was decently possible.

I told Mrs. Veering that I was tired and wanted to go to
bed early; she agreed, adding it was a wonder I didn’t feel worse, considering the blow I’d received.

In the hall I found Greaves. He was sitting in a small upright chair beside the telephone table, a piece of paper in one hand and a thoughtful expression on his face.

“Ready to make an arrest?” I asked cheerfully.

“What? Oh … you plan to go out tonight again?”

“Yes, I was going to ask you if it was all right.”

“I can’t stop you,” said Greaves sadly. “Do us a favor, though, and don’t mention anything about what’s been happening here.”

“I can’t see that it makes much difference. Papers are full of it.”

“They’re also full of something else. We have two men on duty tonight,” he added.

“I hope that’ll be enough.”

“If you remember to lock your door.”

“The murderer might have a key.”

“One of the men will be on the landing. His job is to watch your room.”

I chuckled. “You don’t really think anything will happen with two policemen in the house, do you?”

“Never can tell.”

“You don’t have any evidence, do you?”

“Not really.” The answer was surprisingly frank. “But we know what we’re doing.”

“As a bit of live bait and a correspondent for the
Globe
,
what
are you doing?”

“Wouldn’t tell you for the world, Mr. Sargeant.”

“When do you think you’ll make your arrest? There’ll be a grand jury soon won’t there?”

“Friday, yes. We hope to be ready … we call it Special Court, by the way.”

“Already drawn up your indictment?”

“Could be. Tell me, Mr. Sargeant, you don’t play with paper dolls, do you?”

This set me back on my heels. “Dolls?” I looked at him, at sea.

“Or keep a scrapbook?”

“My secretary keeps a scrapbook, a professional one …what’re you talking about?”

“Then this should amuse you, in the light of our earlier discussions.” He pushed the piece of paper at me.

It was an ordinary piece of typewriter paper on which had been glued a number of letters taken from headlines: they were all different sizes; they spelled out “Brecston is Ciller.”

“When did you get this?”

“I found it right here, this morning.” Greaves indicated the telephone table. “It was under the book, turned face down. I don’t know how I happened to turn it over … looked like scratch paper.”

“Then it wasn’t sent to you?”

“Nor to anybody. Just put on that table where anyone might find it. Very strange.”

“Fingerprints?”

He looked at me pityingly. “Nobody’s left a set of fingerprints since Dillinger. Too many movies. Everybody wears gloves now.”

“I wonder why the words are misspelled?”

“No ‘X’ and not many ‘K’s’ in headlines … these were all taken from headlines apparently. Haven’t figured out which paper yet.”

“Who do you think left it there?”

“You.” He looked at me calmly.

I burst out laughing. “If I thought Brexton was the murderer I’d tell you so.”

Greaves shrugged. “Don’t tell me. It’s your neck, Mr. Sargeant.”

“Just why would I want to keep anything like that a secret?”

“I don’t know … yet.”

I was irritated. “I don’t know anything you don’t know.”

“That may be but I’m convinced the murderer
thinks
you
know something. He wants you out of the way. Now, before it’s too late, tell me what you saw out there in the water.”

“Nobody can say you aren’t stubborn.” I sighed. “I’ll tell you again that I didn’t see anything. I can also tell you that, since I didn’t send you that note, somebody else must’ve … somebody who either does know what happened or else, for reasons of his or her own, wants to implicate Brexton anyway. If I were you, I’d go after the author of that note.” A trail which, I was fairly certain, would lead, for better or worse, to the vindictive Claypoole.

Greaves was deep in some theory of his own. I had no idea what it was. But he did seem concerned for my safety and I was touched. “I must warn you, Mr. Sargeant, that if you don’t tell me the whole truth, everything you know, I won’t be responsible for what happens.”

“My unexpected death?”

“Exactly.” I had the sensation of being written off. It was disagreeable.

AT midnight I arrived at the party which was taking place in a rundown gray clapboard cottage near the railroad station, some distance from the ocean. The Bohemian elements of Easthampton were assembled here: thirty men and women all more or less connected through sex and an interest in the arts.

Nobody paid any attention to me as I walked in the open front door. The only light came from stumps of candles stuck in bottles: the whole thing was quaint as hell.