Jealous Woman (14 page)

“What are you doing here?”

“ ’E brought me ’ere.”

“What for?”

“To tell what I knew about the death of Mr. Delavan.”

“So you do know something about it?”

“Indeed I do, sir.”

Norton began questioning her, and pretty soon she got pretty gabby. “It was around seven, I should say, when Mr. Keyes came to the little ’ouse I had rented on the edge of town, and I’d noticed ’im at the inquest over Mr. Richard, but ’adn’t known ’im and supposed ’im an officer. Then ’e said ’oo ’e was, and when ’e said ’e was interested to go into the exact manner of Mr. Delavan’s death, accant ’e was suspicious of it, I was quite willing to speak about it, as I’d about made up my mind already I was going to end my silence and tell what I knew. So ’e remained outside in a respectful and gentlemanly way while I dressed, brought me ’ere in the cab ’e had waiting, then took me to the room inside there and asked me a few questions, not many. Then in a most friendly and understanding way ’e said ’e never ’eckled a willing witness, and why didn’t I sit down to the recording machine and tell my story on the record while ’e went out and had some coffee. So I did, only taking five records to do it as I made it very brief and clear. Then ’e came back and put the records on the machine and listened to what I ’ad said. And then ’e began looking bad. I did what I could. I got ’im water and ’elped ’im to the couch so ’e could lie down and then I rang you. I think it ’ad something to do with what ’e was ’earing, if I may say what I think.”

“Please do.”

“Yes, feel perfectly free.”

She sat down in Linda’s chair and told it all over again, then noticed Norton doing some more marching around and offered him her place and he took it. He said afterwards he didn’t often accept a seat from a lady, but she seemed to have the kind of legs that made it advisable she got perpendicular for a while. Keyes came out and she asked if she’d be needed any more that night. He said she would. The four of us went in the private office and he switched on the dictation machine.

The first of it was a lot of stuff about how lousy Mrs. Sperry had treated her in Bermuda, and she wasn’t quite as brief and clear as she seemed to think. Then there was some stuff about how Jane had taken pity on her and brought her here, ’aht of the goodness of ’er ’eart, and the trouble over the annulment. Then she told about how Delavan took her to court to put her under bail, and then here it began coming, the part that Jane and I could never figure out. It was all full of
ahts
and
hins
and
hopens
and
shahts
and
’earts
and
flahs,
and Linda didn’t do anything about them, but anyway, here it is, the way it was transcribed with pothooks from the records early the next morning. Anyway, if it’s not what she said it’s what she thought she was saying:

“I was quite frightened in court, until I saw Mr. Delavan looking at me, and I knew he liked me, as I certainly did him. So a day or so later I thought I would see if I could play a little trick on him. So I went to a shop and called him by phone and asked him if I couldn’t pay him a visit and talk to him about it. And as I expected, he said: ‘Good God, girl, no. If this place is watched it Would ruin me. I’d be forever blocked from bringing suit myself, and she could have anything she asked in court.’

“‘Then,’ I said, ‘why not visit
me
?’

“‘That would be worse,’ he said.

“‘Perhaps not. If a young man came up on the Washoe-Truckee roof tonight, just to take the air, and he happened to find a young lady there with the same idea in mind, who could criticize him? It’s a fine, open, respectable place so far as the law is concerned, and it has the additional advantage that it’s quite deserted from ten o’clock on.’

“‘I couldn’t dare risk it.’

“‘Wouldn’t you like to risk it, though?’

“‘Shut up, limey, shut up.’

“‘Ah, come on.’

“‘No.’

“But I went up there, just the same, thinking he might change his mind. I waited a long time, in one of the big rocking seats with canvas sides and back, and he didn’t come. But as I had just come to the conclusion I would be disappointed, the iron door that leads below slowly opened, and there he was, at first paying no attention to me, but walking cautiously around to make sure nobody else was there. Then he came over beside me, and I told him if he compelled me to be his witness, I would of course tell the truth about Mr. Sperry, that there had been no infidelity on his part with me, but I would also tell the truth about this night on the roof, that there had been infidelity on his own part to his own wife with me. And he looked at me sharply and asked what I meant by inventing such a falsehood. And I looked at him just as sharply, as I hope, and asked him what he meant by inventing such a falsehood himself, for he perfectly well knew he had overpowered me and torn off my clothes and used the badminton shuttlecock for a gag and worked his wicked will on me. And as I spoke I tore my dress and scratched my arm with one fingernail and showed him the badminton shuttlecock which I had in the pocket of my apron and had wet some time before at the hose tap in the corner. ‘It is the truth, and you know it, my young and handsome friend,’ I told him, ‘and if you don’t admit it I shall go right over to the phone there and call the hotel staff and you won’t be able to get away before they nab you and my cuts and bruises will substantiate my tale. My very shocking tale, I may say.’

“‘But you’re not offended?’

“‘Not if you let off my bail.’

“‘Then perhaps you enjoyed this frightful outrage?’

“‘Aren’t you the roguish one.’

“‘And perhaps an encore is in order?’

“So he took me in his arms, and gave up the idea of annulment, though he didn’t tell Mrs. Delavan at once, and when he did tell her, pretended Mr. Sperry had frightened him, as she had told him would happen, for we didn’t want it known, the relationship that had sprung up between us. And repeatedly he said how happy he was, and how at last I had set him free from this frightful thing in his life, this woman in the east who he had married one girl to be free from, without success, but now, because he loved me, he felt the shackles had fallen from his heart. And I was happy too, and heard without sorrow the difficulty we would have over money, and how if he married against his family’s wishes he would lose even the small income that he now had. For I took that to be his way of saying he might not be able to be married, on account of our different stations in life, and I didn’t mind, because I loved him.

“And then one night as we sat there, the iron door opened and Mr. Sperry appeared with the little dog he loved so, and took with him wherever he went. I hadn’t seen him in some time, and didn’t know he was in Reno. Mr. Delavan and I kept perfectly still, and when Mr. Sperry went down after a few turns with the dog, we laughed with much enjoyment at how we had stayed hidden. Next night it was the same, except
she
was with him, Mrs. Sperry, and again we kept still, though wanting to laugh. Then, in a few minutes, she sat down on the wall, and he stood nearby smoking his pipe, several times warning her to be careful. Then she said oh damn, and told him her bracelet had fallen and was probably ruined, even if some passer-by happened to pick it up. Then soon she said: ‘No, it didn’t fall, either. Look, it’s caught on the brace.’

“Then he looked and said that was indeed remarkable and she leaned out and tried to reach it, he at once catching her and pulling her back. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘you hold the dog.’ He had the dog in his arms, as he often did, and gave it to her. Then he lay down on the wall, holding onto it with one hand and reaching down with the other toward the steel truss that runs over to the neon sign over the street. She still held the dog, but stepped over behind him. Then she stooped quickly, and lifted his foot. Then he wasn’t there any more. Then Mr. Delavan had his hand over my mouth to stifle my scream, and the little dog was moaning and she was standing there with her face raised to the sky. ‘Thank God,’ she said, ‘thank the merciful God! It was an accident, you barely touched him, you can sleep this night—but he’s gone. Get down to your room and wait for their call! If you go insane, wait for it!’

“And in a jiffy she was gone. ‘And we can thank the merciful God too,’ said Mr. Delavan,’ that we weren’t seen, and won’t be dragged in. It was a shocking thing, but there’s nothing we can do for him now. You get down, too. Get down there and turn down the bed in my wife’s bedroom, or something, whatever you do at this hour. And be sure you ring about something on the phone, so you can prove you were there.’

“‘And where will you go?’ I asked him.

“‘I’ll think of some place.’

“‘Use the stairs,’ I said.”

She told how they raced down the stairs to the eleventh floor, she going to Jane’s suite to see if Jane was still out, he to the stairs to slip on down and out through the basement without being seen. When she got to the suite she checked that Jane was still out, then called the operator to ask the time and tell her a little joke, she didn’t say what, so the girl would remember the call. He went to some club, she didn’t say which, and pledged his watch for some gambling dough, so the slip would show the date and the cashier would remember the time. Then he came to call on Jane. It was three o’clock in the morning, and Jenkins was in her own bed almost asleep when the grand scheme occurred to her. She got out of bed at once, went to a gambling hall, and called Delavan. There was no answer, and she went and threw gravel against the window of his room to wake him. Mrs. Sperry, she told him, when he let her in, could pay. At first he was against it, but the more she talked to him about how rich Mrs. Sperry was, and how they could hit her first for $100,000, then keep it up and keep it up, the more he weakened. They went in another gambling joint, rang her awake, and told her they were coming up. So they did, he going into the hotel the way he left it, she going up, in her uniform, in the regular elevator, as though she’d had a late call. She went on:

“She was quite nasty, but changed her melody when she saw we meant what we said. But she said it was out of the question the police should discover he had fallen from the roof. If they ever guessed she was up there, she felt they might guess the truth, so it was agreed that since Mrs. Delavan was out at the time, I could safely place Mr. Sperry in the suite. Little did I know, at that time, that she had contrived the whole thing, the exact spot on the wall and all, and if I may express my own opinion, had placed the bracelet where it seemed to have fallen, since later it turned out to be Mrs. Delavan’s bracelet, all in the way it occurred, with a telephone call and all the rest of it, to implicate Mrs. Delavan and save herself. This we learned much later, when Mrs. Delavan phoned Mr. Delavan about the bracelet and told him of the other things the police were pressing her about. This was when Mr. Delavan and I knew we had to tell what we knew at last, whether it meant losing our advantage or not.”

There was a lot in there about getting the little house, and her keeping under cover in Reno, but going to Tonopah and Carson and Truckee in the new clothes Delavan bought her with the first money Mrs. Sperry let them have. The big dough she had to get from New York, by selling securities there, but she kicked in with $10,000 quick. Then at the inquest, Lynch spotted the insurance investigators, and she got scared to death. She thought the cops were the only ones she had to fool, but with an insurance company in, trying to hang it on the very one, Jane, that she had done her best to frame, she could see it coming they might find out the truth. That was when she got up at the inquest and told of seeing him jump. Then, Jenkins said:

“She pleaded with us, when we told her we were clearing up the suspicion she had created against Mrs. Delavan. We were not to be shaken, but we agreed at last, if she paid the $100,000, to say Mr. Sperry was on the roof alone with the dog, that he jumped, so it would correspond with her story, except she could say she had seen it in the dark and thought it was a window, and we could say we had withheld our evidence to keep out of trouble and to save his name from disgrace, as we regarded suicide as a scandalous thing. But then she said she would pay the $100,000 in cash, but as naturally so large a withdrawal would arouse interest at the bank, she didn’t want to be seen talking with Mr. Delavan. Would he get a horse from one of the stables and ride over to the spot she described and meet her there? She was most insistent about it, and as the amount was so large and we needed it so badly, he finally agreed and I, fool that I was, let him go.”

Her voice got a rasp to it then, and I saw Keyes brace himself. She went on: “And I swear as I sit here that she enticed him to this lonely spot to kill him, and that she did kill him, for with him out of the way it would be my word against hers, and I had already compromised my reputation for honesty by withholding my true story and telling a false one, at the inquest. I have been in hiding since Mrs. Delavan discharged me, but she had her very good reason and always treated me well, and I cannot remain silent, now I know how the affair stands.”

That seemed to be all, and I switched off the machine and for a while we sat there, nobody looking at anybody else. Then Keyes held up one finger for us to hold everything, got up, and reached way over, to the doorknob, and jerked it open. Mrs. Sperry was there in the ante-room, leaning close to the door jamb to hear what went on inside. She came in and looked us over and then went over and held her face up to Keyes with tears running down it. “You wouldn’t believe anything this cheap little slut might say about me, would you?”

“Yes. I would and I do.”

S
HE SAT DOWN AT
my desk, and began to hook it up big on the weep stuff. Then she began begging Norton to pay no attention to anything Jenkins had told us, and kept saying to forget the insurance claim, that she’d pay it herself, that she was really thinking of Jane, because of course Jenkins had only cooked up this tale to shield her and eventually the truth would come out. Norton didn’t even look at her, and it was when she went over and dropped on her knees beside him, and took his face in her hands to turn it toward her that we all jumped. Norton said later he knew at last how a man feels when he’s out in a cemetery at night and a ghost comes floating up to him. How she got in we never found out, because while the street door was unlocked it seemed impossible we wouldn’t have noticed somebody open it, and when she got in we never found out either, but stalking into the room, one step at a time, her eyes focused on Mrs. Sperry like somebody in a trance, and a horrible little grin on her face, was a tiny, pale, queer-looking woman, maybe thirty-five or so, in a black suit with black stockings, black shoes and a black hat. When she began to talk it was in a little high, squeaky, sing-song voice that sounded like some kid reciting stuff in Sunday School. She kept going closer to Mrs. Sperry, one step at a time, and as she moved she talked: