Suspicious Circumstances (6 page)

‘So this is the set-up with which we are now confronted. You will give my part to Anny, will you?’

‘Yes,’ said Ronnie.

‘And you will divorce me, will you?’

‘Yes,’ said Ronnie.

‘Hoh,’ said Norma. ‘You? Divorce me? Although it seems to have escaped your attention, there happens to be such a thing in the divorce laws as adultery, which little thing you happen to have been committing every hour on the hour ever since I became your bride. By the time my lawyers have compiled a list of adulteresses, which will make a stouter volume than the Manhattan Telephone Directory, we will see who’s divorcing whom. And furthermore there is a little thing in the divorce laws known as Community Property. If there is to be any divorcing going around, you will find that this also will figure largely. Half of everything, half of your great fat fortune, half of Ninon de Lenclos, half of that lovely Juan Gris if I have to saw it in half myself, half, in fact, of everything except this delicious Swiss cheese fondue which is all, all yours.’

She made a swoop at the chafing dish and would have hurled it at Ronnie if poor Pam hadn’t got to it first and clung on for dear life. Although she missed out on hurling the chafing dish, Norma was still glaring at Ronnie.

‘But in spite of all this,’ she said, ‘you will be interested to know, my fine-feathered husband, that there is going to be no divorce — no divorce at all; neither is there going to be any change of casting in that sensational motion picture entitled
Eternally Female
— for the reasons above mentioned, and for the reason about to be mentioned which is as follows. Being your bride may not have been what is considered a bed of roses, but it has certainly been a liberal education in the various and sundry methods of being a crook and a fraud and a tax-evader. Just try to start something, just try, and what I will have to announce will be as music to the ears of the T-Men and the D-Men and whatever other of such type men there may be hanging around. Which about roughly, I would say, settles your hash. And now…’

While Ronnie turned various shades of green, she swung back to Mother.

‘And now,’ she said, ‘we come to the Little Alpine Flower, the Grandmother of all the Sirens, the Ancestress, we might almost call her, of Sex. If, my dearest and oldest Swiss Miss, Ronnie so much as hires you to interpret the role of an ancient sewing woman, let alone Ninon de Lenclos, you will find yourself figuring prominently on the list of adulteresses unless, of course, your lawyers can prove that you’re too old to do it. Not lawyers so much as personal physicians, I would say. And furthermore — you will be pleased to hear that if it is not decided once and for all at this very minute that I am the one to play Ninon de Lenclos, I am prepared to make this the most gala day in the long and respected career of a distinguished columnist friend of mine by the name of Lettie Leroy. At this very minute, I will go to the telephone and, once on it, I shall tell Miss Leroy not only all your mediocre, viperish schemes for stealing my husband and my part, but also a great many other things dating from a dim and distant past which would be enough to make that illustrious contemporary of yours, Queen Marie Antoinette of France, turn in her grave, head or no head. Right at this very minute, as you hear the signal, I will bend Miss Leroy’s ear so far back that she will be able to wear it as a hat.’

And then, while they all stood thunderstruck, even Mother, Norma glared at Ronnie again.

‘Okay, Buster, who gets to play Ninon now?’

Pam could see rage and panic warring in Ronnie. Then rage won.

‘Anny,’ he screamed. ‘Anny plays the part. Anny.’

‘She does?’ said Norma.

‘She does.’

‘very well,’ said Norma. ‘You have dug your grave — you can lie in it. Miss Leroy — here I come.’

And with an agility which seemed improbable under the circumstances, she had swept away and was lumbering back to the house.

It had turned into a Witches’ Sabbath. Pam was, of course, horrified, but at least she remembered that it was supposed to be her function to be executive and stave off disaster.

She said to Ronnie, ‘Does she mean it?’

He was the color of cigarette ash by then. ‘Of course she means it. Give her enough gin and she heads straight for the nearest columnist like a hornet to a pear.’ Then, recovering a bit, he added, ‘But it’s all right. Months ago I had a gimmick installed in the studio which cuts off every phone in the house.’

‘Then for pity’s sake, use the gimmick,’ Pam said.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘yes.’ And he hurried away in the opposite direction from the house down to the little studio he’d built the year before when he discovered he wasn’t only a great motion-picture director but also the most distinguished American abstract painter since Jackson Pollock. Since Pam knew the studio was much nearer the pool house than the house itself and it was almost certain he’d beat Norma to it, she felt she could relax a bit. But she was still in a cold sweat because, although she of course was convinced that Mother had behaved through the whole affair like a radiant angel of mercy, she realized that, once Norma had twisted the story around, Mother could come out looking like a cross between Messalina and a Robber Baron.

Meanwhile, Mother, who had risen above even this, had sailed back to the chafing dish and was bent enchantingly over it, scooping out portions for all of them as if they were merely having a cozy little bit of gracious living. For about ten minutes they just sat eating the fondue in total silence. Ronnie didn’t come back, neither did Norma, arid Pam was getting more and more jittery until at long last Mother put down her plate, delicately savored the last portion and murmured, ‘Good, very good. But perhaps next time just a soupçon more Kirschwasser.’

That’s all she said. Then the celebrated pensive frown started rippling her brow. That went on for a while, then she got up.

‘Darlings,’ she announced, ‘I am worried about poor Norma. She was horrible to me; she has a vulgar, evil tongue, but the poor thing isn’t happy. Heaven knows what she’s doing up in the house. Crying her eyes out, probably. I’ve got to go to her.’

‘Anny!’ cried Pam. ‘Please, for pity’s sake…’

But Mother didn’t pay any attention to her and sailed off towards the house. Uncle Hans and Gino and Pam just waited until, after about ten more minutes, a terrible thought struck Pam. Ronnie’s gimmick cut off all the telephones in the house, and Norma was far too drunk to be able to drive herself to Miss Leroy's. But what about the telephone in the gatehouse where the chauffeur lived with his wife? My God, she thought, if Norma had been smart enough to go down there, she’d have been bending Miss Leroy’s ear for a good twenty minutes. So she got up and ran like a hare with Tray at her heels back to the house and down the front drive to the gatehouse.

When she got there, she saw it was in total darkness. To make sure, she banged on the door and tried the handle, but the door was locked and the chauffeur and his wife were obviously off cavorting.

So that’s all right, she thought, and started up the drive again. Most of the lights were on in the main house. She had almost come up to it when, from inside, she heard Mother’s voice, calling,

‘Pam … Pam …’

She was only a few feet from the front door. She rushed to it. It wasn’t locked. She threw it open and plunged into the hall. And there was Mother standing at the foot of the stairs, yelling, ‘Pam, Pam …’ And there, in a heap at her feet, sprawled over an enormous vicuna rug, was Norma.

‘And, my dear,’ concluded Pam, ‘this is the most ghastly part of all. Tray got rattled and started doing back somersaults all round and around and around the hall.’

I had been sitting on the voodoo drum in my funeral suit listening with what is called ‘mounting tension’. Every now and then I’d broken in, but mostly I’d just let Pam talk. It had seemed less unnerving to have her tell it her way without too much interpretation from me, because most of my interpretations hardly bore thinking about. At one point Tray had come back with a red rubber ball which he tried, very unsuccessfully, to balance on his nose. Pam’s glass had been empty for some time. Now she held it out to me and I got up and made her another gin and tonic. I was so distraught that I forgot and put in ice and had to take it out again.

Across the blue, blue pool, in his blue, blue business suit, Uncle Hans noticed me moving, glanced up from his chess problem and called,

‘Nickie, is Anny home yet?’

Uncle Hans was never completely happy if Mother wasn’t around somewhere.

‘Not yet, Uncle,’ I said. I took Pam the drink. ‘What happened then?’

‘Ronnie,’ said Pam, gulping at the drink. ‘Just a few seconds after me, he came running in from the direction of the door that leads out towards the pool house. He saw it of course. While Tray somersaulted and somersaulted, Ronnie and I just looked at each other and at the Old Girl. Then the Old Girl said, ‘Ronnie, Ronnie, she is dead. The neck is broken. Just like Nickie’s father. I know.’ I hadn’t realized that the Old Girl had been there when your father fell, but I suppose she had. For a few moments, we just milled. Ronnie looked like a ghost but he was wonderfully calm. Then Gino and Uncle Hans came in.’

I swallowed. ‘But where had they all been?’

‘My dear, we had a terrible conference. It didn’t take long. Uncle Hans and Gino had stayed on at the pool house together until they got worried. When Ronnie went to the studio to cut off the house phones, someone had called on the studio telephone and held him up.’

‘And Mother?’ I said bleakly.

Pam’s nose looked pinched as if a pair of invisible pliers were squashing it. ‘Just exactly what you’d expect. The moment she’d reached the house, she’d swirled upstairs to Norma’s room and Norma was lying there on the bed. ‘I tried to comfort her,’ she said, ‘but she was quite impossible. She screamed at me like a fishwife and ordered me out of the house.’ So she left Norma lying there and went back downstairs and was just going out of the side door to join us again at the pool house when she heard the crash. She rushed back and there was Norma. Oh, dear, why couldn’t she have left Norma alone? But it’s so like the Old Girl. The milk of human kindness.’

Pam shrugged. ‘But there’s no point in wailing. There we were, just standing hopelessly, looking down at Norma. Then suddenly it all came over me - I mean the appallingness of the situation. If the Old Girl’s found here now! I thought, and my hair curled at the prospect. So I said to Ronnie, ‘Ronnie, we’ve got to get her out of here this very minute.’

Ronnie saw it, of course. For a moment I was terrified the Old Girl would go Noble and Law-Abiding on us, but she was meek as a mouse and I started dragging her towards the front door and the Mercedes. And then - thank God for Uncle Hans.’

She tilted her glass in the direction of Uncle Hans. ‘What did he do?’

‘He was a genius. You know how he can be at really crucial moments. He hadn’t seemed to be paying much attention all through the evening. He’d had a chess problem, I think. But when we were almost in the car, he suddenly said, ‘Anny, darling, if you want them to think we haven’t been here, what about the fondue? What about six dirty plates, six, no, I believe, five salads, five…’ We got the point then. As one, we dashed back to the pool house. Dementedly, with the Old Girl in the Scottie apron at the sink, we washed and dried and put away. It was ghastly! It only took about fifteen minutes but none of us said a word. Then we rushed to the Mercedes again and hurtled home. We never even discussed what Ronnie was going to say to the police. We just left him in the lurch.’

‘And . . .?’ I said.

‘It was all right. Ronnie told them what, I suppose, the Old Girl told you, and Inspector Robinson believed him. At least Ronnie’s sure he did. Right in their presence, Ronnie found a half-empty gin bottle hidden in a Vuitton suitcase in Norma’s closet. Whether she’d actually had it there or whether Ronnie was brilliant enough to plant it - who knows? But after that they didn’t seem to do much if any detecting.’

Pam sighed and patted her hair, which with all the patting in the world was always going to end up looking like a flycatcher’s nest.

‘So there we are. I’ve told you everything. Now for pity’s sake banish it from your mind forever.’

Banish it! I thought. You might as well ask the Ancient Mariner to banish the albatross from his neck.

‘But, Pam, how did it happen?’

Pam looked hysterical. ‘She fell. That’s all. After the Old Girl left her, she decided to come downstairs again and - she fell.’

‘But if she hadn’t fallen, Mother would never have got the part, would she?’

‘I - I don’t know.’

‘You know she wouldn’t. Norma had Ronnie where she wanted him. She…’

‘Oh dear,’ moaned Pam. ‘This is terrible of me. I know it’s just hysteria, but if you swear you’ll never breathe a word, I’ll tell you what I think could have happened ... just could, mind you. There’s not a shred of evidence, thank God, but ... ‘

I had to say it then or I would have gone out of my mind. ‘You think Mother pushed her?’

The moment I’d said it, I realized what an appalling error of judgment I’d made. For Pam the sun rose and set in Mother. She was often as exasperated with her as I was, but there was a huge difference. Pam’s loyalty, unlike mine, was as impregnable as the British Empire used to be. When she heard what I had said, she literally blanched. It was as if I’d suggested to a devout Moslem that Mahomet had been plastered when he wrote the Koran.

‘Nickie,’ she said, ‘you beastly, stinking, filthy little reptile.’

Although I was still disloyal enough, against all my inclinations, to have the most horrendous thoughts, I hated hurting Pam. I said, ‘I’m terribly sorry, Pam dear. I didn’t mean it. I — I mean, I just wanted to know what you thought…’

‘Nickie, oh, Nickie, what is this thing about you and your mother? Why can’t you see the point of her, see that she’s totally different from all the others? The Normas, the Sylvia La Manns — perhaps they could push people down stairs to get jobs. But Anny…’

‘Pam, I said I was sorry. Tell me. Please. What were you going to say? How do you think it happened?’