“Isn’t revenge one of the usual motives? along with greed and lust?”
“It’s a little extreme … and obvious, too obvious.” It was the first time that I had ever heard a member of any police department maintain that anything was too obvious: as a rule they jump wildly, and often safely, to the first solution that offers itself. This was a bright boy, I decided; I would have to handle myself very carefully around him.
“One other thing,” I said, playing my only card.
“What’s that?”
“Mrs. Pomeroy. I have an idea, a hunch.”
“That what?”
“That she and the old boy were carrying on, a long time ago. It would complete the revenge motive wouldn’t it? Not only was Pomeroy angry about losing his contract but he also had an old grudge against the Senator because of something which had happened even before Pomeroy ever met his wife.”
“Where’d you find all this out?”
“Deduction, I’m afraid. No evidence. At lunch today she made several remarks which started me thinking, that’s all. I found out that she’d known the Senator all her life, that she was very fond of him … really so … that Pomeroy, as we know, was not; that Pomeroy came to the state only about fifteen years ago from Michigan and about the same time, married the Senator’s old friend, Mrs. P.”
“It’ll take a good deal of investigating to check on this.”
“I know some short cuts.”
“We could use them.”
“You do think Pomeroy killed the Senator, don’t you?”
The Lieutenant nodded, “I think he did.”
3
After my session with Winters, I went upstairs and telephoned my office in New York. My secretary, a noble woman in middle life named Miss Flynn, admitted that she had been concerned about me. She gave me a quick report on the progress of my other clients: a hat company, three television actresses of the second rank, a comedian of the first rank, a society lady of mysterious origin but well-charted future, and a small but rich dog-food concern. All of my clients seemed reasonably pleased and the few problems which had arisen in my absence were settled over the phone with Miss Flynn. “I trust you will soon return to New York now that your client Senator Rhodes has been Gathered Up,” said Miss Flynn ceremoniously.
“As soon as the police let us go,” I said. “We’re all in quite a spot.”
“Washington!” said Miss Flynn with a note of disgust: next to Hollywood she regarded it as the end, the absolute moral end of a country which was rapidly degenerating into something Roman and horrid.
After I had finished with Miss Flynn, I called my old editor at the Globe and I managed to extort a considerable sum for a series of articles on the death of Senator Rhodes. I need not now recall the details of this transaction; enough to say that I did pretty well, considering the depressed state of the dollar.
My business over, I strolled downstairs to the second floor. At one end of the corridor, on the left, was the blanketed and guarded entrance to the study. Three bedrooms opened off that corridor. The one nearest the study was occupied by the Pomeroys. Across from it was Walter Langdon’s and, next to his, was Rufus Hollister’s room. To the right of the landing was another hall with four bedrooms opening off it. They were the rooms, I knew, of Senator Rhodes, of Mrs. Rhodes, of Ellen and Miss Pruitt. My room on the third floor was definitely in the outfield, up where the servants lived. On an impulse I went to Ellen’s room and opened the door, without knocking.
Had I been half an hour later, I should probably have witnessed as fine a display of carnality as our Puritan country has to offer; happily, for my own modesty, I found Walter Langdon and Ellen still clothed in spite of a steaming embrace on the bed which broke abruptly when they heard me. Langdon leaped to his feet like a track star warming up for the high hurdles; Ellen, an old hand at this sort of discovery, sat up more slowly and straightened her hair. “A pin just stabbed me in the back of the neck,” she announced irritably, rubbing her neck. “Why the hell don’t you knock?” Then, before I could answer she turned to Langdon angrily and said, “I thought you said you locked the door?”
“I … I thought I did. I guess I turned the key over in the lock.” He was blushing furiously and I could see that my ex-fiancé had aroused him. Embarrassed he trotted into the bathroom and slammed the door behind him.
“A cooling-off period at this point in an affair is often considered very sound,” I said smoothly. “It gives both parties an opportunity to determine whether or not their needs can be served only through sin.”
“Oh, shut up! Where do you think you are? in a railroad station? We were just talking, that’s all … and now look what you’ve done.”
“What have I done?”
“Embarrassed the poor little thing to death. It may take me days to get him back to where I had him before you came in.”
“He’s not that much of a baby,” I said. “And your methods are foolproof anyway.”
“Hell!” said Ellen, in a mood of complete disgust and dejection.
“Anyway I want to talk to you.”
“What about?”
Before I could answer, Langdon came back into the bedroom noticeably soothed. “I’ll see you later,” he said calmly and left the room.
“Now look what you’ve done!”
“You can finish your dirty work tonight,” I said. “I want to talk to you about the murder.”
“Well, what about it?” She was still angry. She went over to her dressing table and sat down, repairing her blurred make-up. I ambled about the room, looking at the bookcase full of girls’ stories and passionate adult novels, at the rather unfeminine décor.
“Was this always your room?”
She nodded. “Up until I got married it was.”
“Where did you go after the marriage was annulled?”
“To a finishing school in New York. When I was thrown out of that, I stayed in New York.…”
“On a liberal allowance.”
“Depends on your idea of liberal; now what about the murder?”
“They think, the police think, Pomeroy did it?”
“So?”
“Did he?”
“How should I know? Why don’t you ask him?”
“I thought you said you knew who did it.”
She laughed, “Did I say that? I must’ve been lit … or maybe you were lit … which reminds me will you push that bell over there. It’s getting near teatime and I’m developing that funny parched feeling.” I pushed the mother-of-pearl button.
“Who do you think did it?”
“My darling Peter, I’m not sure that even if I did know I would tell you. I realize that’s an unnatural way to feel about the murderer of your own father but I’m not a very natural girl, as you well know … or maybe too natural, which is about the same thing. If somebody disliked Father enough to kill him I’m not at all sure that I would interfere. I have no feeling at all about him, about my father I mean. I never forgave him for that annulment … not that I was so much in love, though I thought I was, being young and silly, but rather because he had tried to interfere with me and that’s one thing I can’t stand. Anyway he was not very lovable, as you probably gathered, and when I could get away from home I did. I still don’t know what on earth prompted me to come down here with you. I guess I was awfully high at Cambridge and it seemed like a fun idea. I regretted the whole thing the second I woke up on that train but it was too late to go back.” The butler interrupted the first serious talk I had ever had with Ellen and, by the time half a Scotch mist had given her strength to face the afternoon, she was herself again and our serious moment was over.