At least it could have been a match, or wanting to know the time. “There’s some in the top drawer,” I said.
He opened it and, with shaking hands, took out a few sheets. “Thanks a lot.”
“Perfectly all right.”
“Hope I can do the same for you one day.”
“Never can tell.” The sort of dialogue which insures, or used to insure, any number of Hollywood scriptwriters a secure and large income.
“Sit down,” I said.
“I really better get ready for dinner.”
“You look just fine.” He sat down in the chair at the desk; I sat on the foot of the bed, legs crossed in a most nonchalant fashion. “Are you satisfied with the way things turned out?”
He looked puzzled. “You mean the murders?”
I caught that. “So you think Rufus was murdered too?”
“No, he killed himself, didn’t he? That’s what the police seem to think.”
“Why did you say ‘murders’?”
“A slip of the tongue. Two deaths is what I meant.” He was perfectly calm.
“But I take it you think Rufus was murdered?”
“You take it wrong, Sargeant,” said Langdon. “I see no reason to think Rufus might have been killed. It makes perfect sense the way it is. I think you should leave it alone.” The second time I had been advised, in exactly those words, to keep my nose clean. I was beginning to feel that a monstrous cabal had been formed to misguide me.
“You don’t have much of the newspaperman in you, Langdon,” I said in the hearty tone of a stock company actor in The Front Page.
“I’m not really one,” said Langdon with a touch of frost in his voice. “I just do occasional articles. I’m mainly interested in the novel.”
I have all the pseudo-intellectual’s loathing of those who have dedicated themselves, no matter how sincerely and competently, to art … a form of envy, I suppose, which becomes contempt if they fail. Langdon had all the earmarks of a potential disaster.
“Even so you should be more interested in this sort of thing. Have you decided what you’re going to write about for your magazine?”
He nodded. “I’m working on it now, that’s why I needed the paper. I want to have a first draft ready by the time I get back to the office, tomorrow afternoon.”
“What line are you taking?”
“Oh, the implications of a political murder … I use the Rhodes thing as a point of departure, if you know what I mean.”
I knew only too welclass="underline" the Diachotomy of Murder or The Theology of Crisis in Reaction. It would be great fun to read, I decided grimly. “Then you’ll be taking the noon train with Ellen?” This was a guess, but perfectly logical.
“Yes, as a matter of fact, we are going back together.”
“She’s quite something isn’t she?”
Langdon nodded seriously. “She certainly is.”
“Are you still engaged to her?”
“Oh, it wasn’t a formal engagement.”
“I’m sure of that; they never are.”
Langdon blushed. “She … she’s very promiscuous, isn’t she?”
“Yes, Walter, she is,” I said in the tone of a Scoutmaster explaining to a new tenderfoot the parts of the body and their uses.
“I didn’t think it was so bad until we went out to Chevy Chase and she ducked off with a Marine …”
“She’s been known to complete a seduction in ten minutes.”
“Well, this took a lot longer. I was mad as hell at her but she told me it was none of my business, that she thought the Marine much too nice-looking to let go; it was then I caught on.”
“You didn’t really care about her that much, did you?” I was curious; both Ellen and I had thought him a fool.
He scratched his sandy hair in a bumpkin manner. “Not really. I never ran into anything quite like her before and I guess I was taken in for a little bit.”
“The fact she now has a million dollars, as well as an uninhibited technique, might make her irresistible to an American boy.”
“Not this boy.” But I detected a wistful note; she had used him up, as it were. I wondered what would become of her now that she was rich; there were bound to be operators cleverer than she in the world, and what a ride they could take her for. Well, it was no business of mine.
“Let me see what you write for the Advanceguard, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all. I’d like your advice.” Then he left the room.
I puttered about the room, getting ready for dinner, the last dinner in this house. I packed my bag, slowly, reluctantly, aware that the puzzle was incomplete and would doubtless remain so now, forever. I cursed my ill luck, my slow brain, the craft of my opponent: for some time now I had regarded the killer as a malicious personal opponent whose delight it was to torment me.
I opened my desk to see if there were any letters or old socks in the drawers. There was nothing. Only a few sheets of typewriter paper. On one of them I had made some elaborate doodles; at the center of the largest decoration I had written “paper chase” in old English type.
Paper chase. I thought of Mrs. Rhodes. Something I had heard that day came back to me; something I had known all along appeared in a new way. Unexpectedly every piece fell into place.
And I knew who had killed Senator Rhodes, and Rufus Hollister.
4
It was evident from the happy faces at table that night that this was to be our last supper together. No one was sorry that the ghastly time was finally over. I was giddy with triumph and I had a difficult time not showing it. My exuberance was doubtless attributed to our coming freedom. We were like prisoners on the eve of parole.
I took great care not to betray myself. I made no reference all that evening to the case; I indicated in no way that I had completed the picture puzzle. I even refrained from staring too long at the killer, who was most serene, doubtless confident that the whole desperate gamble had been won at last.
Winters was noticeable by his absence. There had been some talk that he would come by to say farewell but he did not, out of shame at facing me, I decided, complacent in my victory, keyed up to an extraordinary pitch both by my discovery and by the danger which attended it.
I lacked evidence, of course, but when one knows a problem’s answer its component parts can be deduced and proved, by working backwards. I had, I was sure, the means of proving what I knew.
After dinner, we were joined in the drawing room by Johnson Ledbetter and Elmer Bush. They came in out of the black winter night, their faces red from cold, bringing cold air with them.
Their entrance depressed, somewhat, the gala mood of the guests.
Mrs. Rhodes poured us coffee. Cups were handed about. The discredited statesman took bourbon. His journalistic ally did the same. They sat talking by the fire to Mrs. Rhodes, Roger Pomeroy and Verbena Pruitt, leaving the women and children to amuse themselves. We amused ourselves, even though I was anxious to join the circle by the fire.
Ellen and Camilla fell to wrangling in a most sisterly fashion while Langdon and I exchanged weighty opinions on the state of contemporary letters (“decadent”).
After an hour of this, everyone shifted positions, as often happens with a group in civilized society: a spontaneous rearrangement of the elements to distribute the boredom more democratically.
I ended up with Ledbetter and Elmer and Verbena Pruitt at the fireplace.
“It has become,” said Ledbetter slowly, “A Party Issue.”
“In which case you’re bound to win,” said Verbena comfortably. “I have word that the White House intends to intervene.”
“But when? When?” His voice rose querulously.
“His hands are tied. You know how he feels about interfering in legislative problems. Yet I have it on the highest, the very highest, authority that he intends to act before the week is over. One word from him and the Party will support you.”