Then I told Ellen about Mrs. Pomeroy.
She laughed out loud; she stopped when she saw Verbena Pruitt looking at us with disapproval. “I didn’t know Camilla had it in her,” she said with admiration.
“I only hope you’re not jealous,” I teased her.
“Jealous? Of Camilla?” Ellen was amused. “I wish the poor dear luck. I hope she has a good time … you will give her one?”
“I haven’t thought that far ahead,” I said loftily, wondering myself what I should do about this situation. I wasn’t much attracted; on the other hand if her husband was the murderer I should, perhaps, devote a little time to her. “By the way,” I asked, “how is the affaire Langdon coming?”
Ellen scowled. “It’s not coming at all. Every time something is about to happen the lights go out or someone gets murdered. At this present rate it will be weeks before anything happens.”
“Were you with him last night?”
She smiled slyly.
“I don’t think it would be very easy: with that guard watching the corridor all the time.”
“He looks the other way. Besides, our rooms are on the same side and at the other end of the landing. He can’t tell whether I’m going into my room or the one next to it.”
“I see you’ve figured it all out.”
“Don’t forget that where the guard sits used to be my father’s study and that once upon a time Father used to work in there with the door open, keeping an eye on the hall and me, especially when we had young men staying in the house.”
“Jezebel!”
“There are times when I think I may be a little abnormal,” said Ellen calmly. Then, at a signal from the Governor, she got up and followed him into the dining room: the room of all work. In a few minutes only Verbena Pruitt, Langdon and Mr. Pomeroy were left in the room. The four of us sat cozily about the fire. Pomeroy mixed drinks. From the other room came the monotonous, indistinct sound of the Governor’s voice.
“I hope they’ll be finished with us soon,” said the great lady of American politics, scratching the point where her girdle stopped and her own firm flowing flesh began. She was in black now but her hat was trimmed with quantities of imitation cherries.
“So do I,” said Langdon gloomily, cracking his knuckles. “I have to get back to New York. The magazine is bothering the life out of me.”
“I should think they’d be delighted to have one of their people in this house,” I said reasonably, remembering my own newspaper days. Mr. Pomeroy handed me a Scotch and soda.
“I guess they think they have the wrong person here,” said Langdon truthfully.
“Nonsense, my boy. It’s all in your head. You can do anything you want to,” Miss Pruitt fired her wisdom over a jigger of straight rye.
“But remember, Verbena, a murder story without a murderer isn’t the most interesting thing in the world,” Mr. Pomeroy said quietly, shocking the rest of us a little since we all believed, deep down, that he was the murderer. If he was aware of our suspcions, he didn’t show it. He went right on talking about the murder, in a tired voice. “It’s one of those odd cases where no one is really involved, as far as we know … on the surface. I gather from the papers that some people think that because of the weapon used and because of my own troubles with Lee that I killed him … but, aside from the fact I didn’t kill him, doesn’t it seem illogical that I would use my own 5-X, immediately after a quarrel, to blow him up? It’s possible, certainly, but too obvious, and I will tell you one thing: considering the people involved in this affair nothing, I repeat nothing, is going to be simple or obvious.” There was an embarrassed silence after this.
“You know none of us think you did it,” said Verbena Pruitt with a good imitation of sincerity. “Personally, I think one of those servants did it … that butler. I never have approved of this habit of leaving money to servants, to people who work for you every day … it’s too great a temptation for them.”
I tried to recall who the butler was; I couldn’t, only a vague blur, a thin man with a New England accent.
“I don’t see why they think one of us had to do it,” said Langdon petulantly. “Anybody could have got in this house that day and planted the stuff in the fireplace. According to the butler, two plumbers were on the second floor all that afternoon and nobody paid any attention to them.”
This was something new. I wondered if Winters knew this. “Perhaps the plumbers didn’t have any motive?” I suggested.
“Perhaps they weren’t plumbers,” said Pomeroy, even more interested than I in this bit of information.
“Hired assassins?” This was too much I thought … still it happened quite often in the underworld … and the political world of Lee Rhodes had, in more than one place, crossed the world of crime.
“Why not?” said Pomeroy.
“But the reason the police think someone on the inside did it was because only a person who knew the Senator’s habits well could have figured out how to kill him that way, with the stuff in the fireplace.” I was sure of this: for once the official view seemed to me to be right.
Langdon dissented, to my surprise. “You’re going under the assumption that the only people in the world who knew the Senator’s habits were in this house as guests that night. You forget that a good many other people knew him even better than most of us did … people who would have been just as capable of blowing him up …”
“Perhaps,” I said, noncommittally. I made a mental note to call Miss Flynn in New York and have her check up on the past of Walter Langdon. I didn’t quite dig him, as the jazz people say.
Suddenly there was an unexpected sound from the dining room … a little like a shriek, only not so loud or so uncontrolled: an exclamation … a woman’s voice. Then the double doors were flung open and Mrs. Rhodes, white-faced, rushed through the room to the hall, not stopping to acknowledge our presence. She was followed by Ellen, also pale and oddlooking, and by Mrs. Pomeroy who was in tears. Outside, the Governor and Rufus Hollister were deep in an argument while, behind them, several servants, minor beneficiaries, trooped back to the kitchen.
Mrs. Pomeroy, without speaking even to her husband, left the room close on the heels of Mrs. Rhodes. Pomeroy, startled, followed her.
It was Ellen who told me what had happened, told me that Camilla Pomeroy, born Wentworth, was the illegitimate daughter of Leander Rhodes and a principal heir to his estate.
3
“Who would have thought it,” was Ellen’s attitude when we got away from the others after dinner; we pretended to play backgammon at the far end of the drawing room. Everyone had been shocked by the revelation. Winters was having a field day and Mrs. Rhodes was hiding in her room.
“Rufus is trying to keep it out of the papers but the Governor says that it’s impossible, that under the circumstances the will would have to be made public because of the murder. It’s going to kill Mother.”
“Did you ever suspect anything like this?”
She shook her head. “Not in a hundred years. I knew Camilla adored Father but I think I’ve already told you there was almost always some goose girl around making eyes at him and getting in Mother’s hair.”
“Did she know?”
“Mother? I don’t think so. You never can tell, though. She’s just about the most close-mouthed person in the world … has to be in politics. She seemed awfully shocked.”
“I’m not surprised … it must have been awful for her, hearing it like that … in front of everyone.”
Ellen grimaced. “Awful for everybody.”