3
For a while I entertained the mad fantasy that Verbena Pruitt, Mrs. Rhodes and the Senator-Designate (the only three in the house at the time, other than servants) might have got together and killed Rufus on their own. Each had a motive, except perhaps Verbena. The vision, however, of these three elderly political figures tiptoeing upstairs to shoot Rufus Hollister was much too ludicrous.
I arrived at the house shortly before dinner. It was already dark outside and the curtains were drawn against the night. The plain-clothes man who usually stood guard was nowhere in sight.
In the drawing room I found Mrs. Rhodes, quite alone, playing solitaire at a tiny Queen Anne desk. She greeted me with her usual neutrality.
“I suppose,” I said, “you’ll be glad to see the last of us.”
“The last of you under these circumstances,” she replied courteously, motioning me to sit beside her.
“What do you plan to do when all this is over, when the estate is settled and everything is taken care of?”
“Do?” she looked at me blankly for a moment, as though she had not, until now, conceived there would be a future.
“I mean do you intend to go back to Talisman City, or live here?”
She gave me a long look, as though I had asked her a nearly impossible question. Finally she said, “I shall stay here of course. All my friends are here,” she added mechanically.
“Like Mrs. Goldmountain?”
She smiled suddenly, for the first time since I met her, like sun on the snow. “No, not like Mrs. Goldmountain. Others … my old friends from the early days. We had no very close friends back home, the old ones died off and we made no new ones, except politically. I haven’t lived there since we came to Washington.”
“I saw Mrs. Goldmountain today.”
“Yes?” She was clearly not interested.
“I understand she’s a great friend of Governor Ledbetter’s.”
“I believe so.”
“She is certainly taking his side in this business.”
“As she should. I’m sure that Johnson did nothing dishonest, nor did Lee.” But this came out automatically; she seemed to be making a series of prepared responses, her mind on something else.
“I didn’t know the Governor was here the night Rufus died.”
“Oh yes, we had a nice chat. He is a good friend, you know, as well as our lawyer.”
“He told Mrs. Goldmountain that he and Rufus quarreled that night, about the business of those companies.”
Mrs. Rhodes frowned, “Ida Goldmountain should show better sense,” she said sharply. “Yes, they had a disagreement. Over what I don’t know; it took place upstairs, in Rufus’s room.”
“Did the police know this?”
“That Johnson was here? Oh yes, both Verbena and I told them when we were questioned as to who was in the house.”
“Did they know that the Governor went upstairs to talk to Rufus, alone? That they quarreled?”
She looked at me coldly, with sudden dislike. “Why, I don’t know,” she said. “The police didn’t ask me and I don’t remember having volunteered any information. I am so used to having things misunderstood,” she said and her voice was hard.
“I’m sure they must know,” I said thoughtfully, trying to figure out Winters: why had he kept this piece of information secret? Not only from me but from the official report given to the newspapers.
“Besides,” she said, “the case ended when Rufus killed himself. There was no need to involve one’s friends any more than was necessary. I appreciated Johnson’s kindness in coming to see me his first night in Washington, before he was to take his seat. If I were you,” and she looked at me with her clear onyx eyes, unmarked by age or disaster, “I would say nothing about Johnson’s exchange with Rufus.”
“I’ll have no occasion to, yet,” I said, quite as cool as the old lady. “In any case, I’m not the person to silence. Mrs. Goldmountain is. She’s the informer.”
“That fool!” Mrs. Rhodes exploded.
“Fool or not, she’s given us a new angle on the case.”
“Case? what case?”
“On who killed your husband, Mrs. Rhodes, and who killed Rufus Hollister.”
She sat back in her chair, “You’re mad,” she said in a low voice. “It’s all over. The police are satisfied. Leave it alone,” her voice was harshly urgent.
“But the police aren’t satisfied,” I said, and this was a big and dangerous guess. “They know as well as you and I that Rufus was killed; they are waiting for the real murderer to make some move. So am I.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“But it’s true.”
“Even if all you say is true why do you involve yourself in it? Why not go back to New York? Why involve yourself in a world which has nothing to do with yours?”
“Because, Mrs. Rhodes, I’m already involved, because I’m in danger no matter where I go.”
“Danger? Why?”
“Because I know who the murderer is and the murderer knows that I know.” This was a crashing lie but there was no help for it.
She pushed her chair back and stood up, as though prepared to run from the room; her face was ash-gray. “You’re lying,” she said at last.
I stood up, too. From the hall I could hear a door shut and the sound of someone running upstairs. We stood looking at one another like two graven images, like gargoyles on a mediaeval tower.
Then she recovered her composure and gave a strange little laugh. “You are trying to confuse me,” she said, attempting lightness. “We all know that Rufus was the murderer and that he killed himself. Whatever argument Johnson had with him was perfectly innocent … as far as the main thing goes. Certainly the thought that Johnson killed Rufus is a ridiculous one, quite unimaginable.”
“Then why did you imagine it, Mrs. Rhodes? It never occurred to me that he did.”
She flushed, confused. “I … I was mistaken then. I was under the impression you thought Johnson was in some way involved.”
I was conscious that she had betrayed something of enormous value to me, but what I could not tell. “No,” I said. “I never thought the Governor killed Rufus but I am curious about their conversation.”
“I suspect that it is none of your business, in any case, Mr. Sargeant,” Mrs. Rhodes was herself again.
“As I pointed out, it is my business if it concerns the murder.” I could be quite as cold as she.
“And you think there is some connection?”
“Certainly. The collapse of this company has a great deal to do with the case … not only with your husband’s death but with the career of Governor Ledbetter.”
She gathered up her purse, a handkerchief, prepared to go. “I assume then you will be staying with us for quite some time, after the others leave tomorrow?” This was insulting.
“No, Mrs. Rhodes,” I said looking her straight in the eye, “I will deliver the murderer tomorrow.”
She looked at me for one long moment, quite expressionless; then in a low voice, intensely, she said, “You meddlesome fool!” and she swept out of the room.
Feeling somewhat shaken, and a little silly, I went out into the hall. A familiar perfume was in the air as I walked slowly up the stairs, wondering what to do next. There was very little chance that I would be able to unmask the murderer, much less be able to collect sufficient evidence to assure conviction.
I was tempted to forget about the whole thing.
I was surprised, when I opened the door to my room, to find Walter Langdon leaning over my desk in a most incriminating fashion. He gave a jump when he saw me.
“Oh! I … I’m awfully sorry. I came in here just a minute ago, looking for you. I wanted to borrow some typewriter paper.”