He wrote this down slowly in what he pretended was shorthand but actually was I could see, a sloppy form of longhand. “I'd still like to . . .” he began stubbornly, but I interrupted him.
“They don’t want to talk, Junior. You talk to me or get yourself out of here.”
This impressed him. “Well, sir, I’ve been to see the police and they say Mrs. Brexton was drowned this morning at eleven six. That right?”
I said it was. 1 fired all the facts there were at him and he recorded them.
“I'd like to get a human interest angle,” he said in the tone of one who has just graduated from a school of journalism, with low marks.
“You got plenty. Brexton’s a famous painter. Mrs. Veering's a social leader. Just rummage through your morgue and you’ll find enough stuff to pad out a good feature.
He looked at me suspiciously. “You're not working for any paper, are you?”
I shook my head, “I saw a movie of The Front Page once ... I know all about you fellows.”
He looked at me with real dislike. “I’d like to see Mrs. Veering just to . . .”
“Mrs. Veering is quote prostrate with grief unquote. Paul Brexton quote world-famous modem painter refuses to make any comment holding himself incommunicado in his room unquote. There’s your story.”
“You’re not being much help.”
“It’s more help than nothing. If I didn’t talk nobody would.” I glanced anxiously around to make sure none of the other guests was apt to come strolling in. Fortunately, they were all out of sight.
“TheyTe doing an autopsy on Mrs. Brexton and I wondered if . . .”
“An autopsy?” This was unusual.
“That’s right. It’s going on now. I just wondered if there was any hint . . .”
“Of foul play? No, there wasn’t. We all witnessed her death. Nobody drowned her. Nobody made her swim out into the undertow. She’d had a nervous breakdown recently and there’s no doubt but that had something to do with her death.”
He brightened at this: I could almost read the headline: 30
"Despondent Socialite Swims to Death at Easthampton.” Well, I was following orders.
I finally got him out of the house and I told the butler, in Mrs. Veering’s name, to send any other newspaper people to me first. He seemed to understand perfectly.
Idly, wondering what to do next, I strolled out onto the porch and sat down in a big wicker armchair overlooking the sea. Walking alone beside the water was Allie Claypoole. She was frowning and picking up shells and stones and bits of seaweed and throwing them out onto the waves, like offerings. She was a lovely figure, silhouetted against the blue.
I picked up a copy of Time magazine to learn what new triumphs had been performed by “the team” in Washington. I was halfway through an account of the President’s golf scores in the last month at Burning Tree when I heard voices from behind me.
I looked about and saw they were coming from a window a few feet to my left. The window, apparently, of Brexton’s bedroom: it was, I recalled, the only downstairs bedroom. Two men were talking. Brexton and Claypoole. I recognized their voices immediately.
“You made her do it. You knew she wasn’t strong enough.” It was Claypoole: tense, accusing.
Brexton’s voice sounded tired and distant. I listened eagerly; the magazine slipped from my lap to the floor while I strained to hear. “Oh, shut up, Fletcher. You don't know what you’re saying. You don’t know anything about it.”
“I know what she told me. She said . . ."
“Fletcher, she was damned near out of her mind these last few months and you know it as well as I do . . . better, because you’re partly to blame."
“What do you mean by that crack?”
“Just what I say. Especially after Bermuda.” There was a long pause. I wondered if perhaps they had left the room.
Then Claypoole spoke, slowly: “Think whatever you want to think. She wasn’t happy with you, ever. You and your damned ego nearly ruined her . . . did ruin her.”
“Well, I don’t think you’ll be able to blame her death on my ego . . .”
“No, because I’m going to blame it on you.”
A cold shiver went down my spine. Brexton’s voice was hard. “There’s such a thing as criminal libel. Watch out.”
“I expect to. I’m going to tell the whole story in court. I expect you thought I’d be too afraid of repercussions . . . well, I’m not. When I get through there won't be anybody who doesn’t know.”
Brexton laughed shortly. “In court?” What makes you think there’ll be a court?”
“Because I’m going to tell them you murdered her.”
“You’re out of your mind, Fletcher. You were there. How could I murder her? Even if I wanted to?”
“I think I know. Anyway it’s be your word against mine as to what happened out there, when she was drowning."
“You forget that young fellow was there too. You’ve got his testimony to think about. He knows nothing funny happened."
“I was closer. I saw . . .”
“Nothing at all. Now get out of here.”
“I warned you."
“Let me warn you then. Fletcher: if you circulate any of your wild stories, if you pin this . . . this accident on me, I’ll drag Allie into the case."
Before I could hear anything more, the butler appeared with the news that a reporter from the local paper was waiting to see me. Cursing my bad luck, puzzled and appalled by what I had heard, I went into the drawing room and delivered my spiel on the accidental death of Mildred Brexton. Only I wasn’t too sure of the accident part by this time.
3
For some reason, the newspapers scented a scandal even before the police or the rest of us did. I suppose it was the combination of Mrs. Veering “Hostess” and Paul Brexton “Painter” that made the story smell like news way off.
I spent the rest of that afternoon handling telephone calls and interviewers. Mrs. Veering kept out of sight. Mary Western Lung proved to be a source of continual trouble, however, giving a series of eyewitness accounts of what had happened calculated to confuse an electric eye much less a bewildered newspaperman.
"And so you see,” she ended breathlessly to the local newspaperman who sat watching her with round frightened eyes, “in the midst of life we are we know not where, ever. I comprehend full well now the meaning of that poor child’s last words to me, I hope the water isn’t cold. Think what a world of meaning there was in that remark now that we know what she intended to do.”
"Are you suggesting Mrs. Brexton killed herself?” The member of the fourth estate was drooling with excitement.
I intervened quickly, pushing him to the door. “Of course not,” I said rapidly. "There’s no evidence at all that she wanted to such a thing; as a matter of fact, she couldn’t’ve been more cheerful this morning...”
“And I’ll send you a copy of ‘Book-Chat,’ the last one.” Miss Lung shouted at the retiring interviewer’s back. I told the butler to let no one else in for the day.
I turned to Miss Lung. “You know that Mrs. Veering asked me to look after the press, to keep them from doing anything sensational. Now you’ve gone and put it in their heads that she intended to commit suicide.”
“Did commit suicide.” Miss Lung smiled wisely at me over her necklace of chins.
“How do you know?”
“She was a marvelous athlete ... a perfect swimmer. She 32
deliberately drowned.”
“In full view of all of us? Like that? Struggling? Why, I saw her wave for help.”
Miss Lung shrugged. “She may have changed her mind at the last minute . . . anyway you can’t tell me she would've drowned like that if she hadn’t wanted to.”