“I wonder why he’d admit something like that … even in his will.”
“I suppose he never thought he’d die this soon … besides, it could have been kept quiet if there hadn’t been a murder to complicate things.”
“How much does she get?”
“A little over a million dollars,” said Ellen without batting an eye.
I whistled. “How much of the estate is that?”
“Around a third. Mother and I each get a third … and then the servants get a little and Rufus gets all the law books, and so on.”
“This changes everything.”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you still think you know who killed your father?”
She looked at me vaguely. “Darling, I haven’t the faintest idea what you mean.”
“You did a couple of days ago.”
“Now I’m not so sure.” She was obviously not listening to me. She kept rolling the dice onto the backgammon board, again and again without looking at the numbers.
“What made you say you thought you knew?”
“I’ve forgotten.” She seemed irritated. “Besides, why is it so important to you?”
“I have to do a story.”
“Then write about something else.”
“Don’t be silly. Anyway, even if I didn’t have to worry about the New York Globe I’d be worried on my own account … being shut up like this with a murderer … in the same house.”
“Oh, stop being so melodramatic! You haven’t the faintest connection, as far as I can see, with all this … why should you be in danger?”
“Because of my theories,” I said a little pompously … as a matter of fact I was still completely at sea.
Ellen said a short four-letter word which communicated her opinion of my detective abilities with Saxon simplicity.
“Tell me, then,” I said coolly, “why I should be shoved downstairs in the dark with such force that I could’ve broken my neck …”
“If your head hadn’t been so solid,” said the insensitive Ellen, rolling snake eyes. “By the way did you get a look at whoever it was who pushed you?”
“How could I? I told you it was dark on the landing.”
“I must say all that’s very exciting … it’s the one really interesting thing that’s happened since the murder.”
What a cold-blooded piece she was, I thought. She acted as though she were in a theater watching a play, interested only in being shocked or amused. I wondered if she might not have been the illegitimate daughter after all … no Electra she, as Time Magazine would say. “It would be a lot more interesting if they could find out what the murderer wanted in that room.”
“Why? Did he take anything?”
“Not as far as the police could tell. There weren’t any papers there anyway … everything had been taken down to headquarters.”
“Poor Rufus.”
“Why do you say that?”
“He’s terrified all his political shenanigans will be found out … he and Father were awfully close, you know … I suspect they were involved in all sorts of deals which might not bear investigating.”
“Well, if there was anything shady the police haven’t found it,” I said with more authority than I actually had: I was not naive enough to think Lieutenant Winters had confided all he knew to me. “I wonder if Rufus could have been the one who knocked the guard out last night, and pushed me downstairs.”
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised.”
“I doubt if there was anything in there the murderer could have wanted … if there had been he would have got it the night of the murder, before the murder … unless he left something by mistake.”
“Which the police would have found by now.”
There were so few real leads, I thought sadly. Pomeroy’s feud over the 5-X; Langdon’s strange quotation and highly political attitude … very much the fanatic type; Rufus Hollister’s terror of certain documents falling into the hands of the police; Camilla Pomeroy’s unexpected relationship to the Senator … her large inheritance which provided both her and her husband with ample motive for murder. But had they known she was included in the will? Had Pomeroy known that his wife was the Senator’s daughter? This was a question which should be cleared up soon: it would make a great deal of difference.
Across the room I saw Langdon excuse himself and go upstairs; a moment later Ellen gave a vast stage yawn and said, “I’m worn out, darling. I think I’ll go up now.”
“And get a little shut-eye?” I mocked.
“Don’t be a cad,” she said grandly and swept out of the room.
I found Winters in the dining room going over what looked like a carbon copy of the will. He looked up when I came in; his ever-present plain-clothes man made a move to bar my way but Winters wearily waved him aside. “Come on in.”
I sat beside him at the table. I asked the important question first.
He nodded in answer. “Yes, Pomeroy knew who his wife’s father was. It seems she told him last year … at the height of his quarrel with the Senator … she thought it would make him more reasonable.”
“Did it?”
Winters sighed. “The big question.”
“There’s a bigger question … did either of them know about the will?”
“It’ll be a long time before we figure that one out,” said the Lieutenant grimly. “Both deny having known anything about it. But …”
“But you think they did.”
He nodded. “The Governor drew up the will … he’s also Pomeroy’s lawyer, and an old friend.”
“Can’t very well grill a Governor.”
“Not directly.”
Remembering the pressure on my knee at the Cathedral, I had an idea. “I think I can find out something about the will, from Mrs. Pomeroy.” I told him about the knee-pressing episode. He was interested.
“It would be a great help. It’d just about wind up the case we’re making against Pomeroy: double motive, the weapon, the opportunity …”
“Two more suspects, though.”
“Who?”
“Hollister … he and the Senator were obviously involved in some illegal activities. And Langdon who’s something of a fanatic.” I related the business about the quotation but it was much too tenuous for the official mind. As for Hollister, we both agreed that he was an unlikely murderer since, had he done away with the Senator, he would have taken care to have got all the incriminating papers out of the study first. With a promise to do my best with Mrs. Pomeroy, I left Winters to his bleak study of the will.
I was staring at my typewriter with a feeling of great frustration, when there was a rap on my door. “Come in,” I said.
Rufus Hollister put his head inside the door, tentatively, like one of those clowns at a carnival who make targets of their heads for customers with beanbags. “May I come in?”
“Sure.” I motioned to the armchair opposite me. He sat down with a moan, crumpled I should say. I sat very straight at my desk, the light behind my head, ready to yell if he pulled a gun on me.
But if Rufus was the murderer, he was not in a murdering mood. In fact he was hardly coherent. “Just wandering by,” he mumbled.
“If I had a drink I’d offer it to you.”
“Quite all right. I’ve had a few already … maybe too many.” He sighed again, deeply; then he took off his thick spectacles and rubbed his owl eyes … they were rather tiny I noticed … quite different without the magnifying glasses.
“Do the papers know yet?” I asked, recalling that I was, after all, in the public relations business.
“Know?” He blinked at me.
“About the will? About Mrs. Pomeroy?”
“Not yet. I suppose they will be told tomorrow.”