“Well, as somebody who was a few feet from her when she was still alive I can tell you she was doing her best to remain in this vale of tears.”
“What a happy phrase! Vale of tears indeed!”
“You said it.” I was disgusted. “Did you tell the police you thought she intended to drown on purpose?”
“Why certainly.” Miss Lung was bland. I understood then the promptness of the autopsy. “It was my duty as a citizen and as a friend of poor Mildred to set the record stright.”
“I hope you’re right ... I mean, in what you did.”
“I’m sure I am. Didn’t you think that man from the papers awfully distinguished-looking? Not at all my idea of the usual sort of newspaperman...”
A telephone call from Liz broke short this little chat. I took it in the hall.
“Peter?”
“That’s right. Liz?”
“What on earth is going on over there? Are you all right?”
“It didn’t happen to me.”
"Well, you should hear the stories going around. Just what did happen?”
“One of the guests . . . Mildred Brexton, drowned this morning.”
“Oh, isn’t that awful! And on a week end too.”
I thought this a strange distinction but let it go. “The place is a madhouse.”
“She’s not the painter’s wife, is she?”
When I said she was, Liz whistled inelegantly into the phone, nearly puncturing my eardrum. People like Brexton are the fragile pillars on which the fashion world is built.
“That should make quite a splash.”
I agreed. “Anyway I’m coming to the dance tonight. The others are staying in but I’m to be allowed out.”
“Oh good! I’ll leave an invitation at the front door for you. Isn’t it terribly interesting?”
“You might call it that. See you later.”
As I hung up, Mrs. Veering sailed slowly into view, gliding down the staircase with a priestess-smile on her lips. She was loaded to the gills.
“Ah, there you are, Peter.” For some reason her usually strong voice was pitched very low, gently hushed as though in a temple. “I understand we’ve been besieged by members of the press.”
“Quite a few. More than you’d expect for a run-of-the-mill accident.”
Mrs. Veering, catching a glimpse of Mary Western Lung in the drawing room, indicated for me to follow her out onto the porch where we could be alone with the twilight. The beach looked lonely and strange in the light of early evening.
“Do you think 1 should give an exclusive interview to Cholly Knockerbocker or one of those people?” She looked at me questioningly; her face was very flushed and I wondered if she might not have high blood pressure as well as alcohol in her veins.
“Has he ... or they asked you for one?”
“No, but I’m sure they will. We’ve been getting, as you say, an unusual amount of attention.”
'T don’t see it’d do any harm. I’d say that Knickerbocker would come under the heading of the right sort of publicity."
“So should I. My only fear is people will think me heartless in giving a Labor Day party so close to my neice’s death.”
“I wouldn’t think so,” I said soothingly: I had a pleasant week or two around Easthampton not to mention a salary to think of. I had no intention of letting Mrs. Veering give up her party at this stage of the game. “They’ll all understand. Also, they’ll be impressed by the publicity.”
“Poor Mildred." With that eccentric shift of mood which I’d noticed earlier, Mrs. Veering had changed from calm rational matron to Niobe, weeping over her children, if that’s the one who wept over her children. She stood there beside me, quite erect, the tears streaming down her face. It was unnerving. Then, as suddenly as it started, her weeping ended and she wiped her eyes, blew her nose and in her usual voice said, “I think you’re absolutely right. I’ll have the invitations sent out Monday come hell or high water.”
Considering the nature of her niece’s death, I thought “high water" inapt but what the hell. “There’s one thing I think I should tell you,” I said, stopping her as she was about to go into the house.
“Yes?” she paused in the doorway.
“Your friend Miss Lung told the police she thought Mrs. Brexton drowned herself on purpose.”
"Oh, no!” Mrs. Veering was shocked into some semblance of normality. “She didn't! She couldn’t!”
“She did and she could. I found out when she cornered one of the newsmen a little while ago.”
The angry alcoholic flush flickered in her cheeks, mottling them red and white. “How could she?" She stood weakly at the door.
I was soothing: “I don’t suppose it’ll do much harm. Nobody can prove it one way or the other unless of course there was a last message of some kind.”
“But to have people say that ... to say Mildred . . . oh, it’s going to be awful.” And Mrs. Veering, having said that mouthful, made straight for the drawing room and Miss Lung. I went upstairs to change for dinner.
4
I have my best ideas in the bathtub ... at least those that don’t come to me unheralded in another part of the bathroom where, enthroned, I am master of the universe.
As I crawled into the old-fashioned bathtub, a big porcelain job resembling an oversize Roman coffin, I thought seriously of what had happened, of the mystery which was beginning to cloud the air.
It’s a temptation to say that, even then, I knew the answer to the puzzle but honesty compels me to admit that I was way off in my calculations. Without going into hindsight too much, my impressions were roughly these: Mildred Brexton had had a nervous breakdown for reasons unknown (if any); there was some relationship between Claypoole and her which Brexton knew about and disliked; there were indications that Brexton might have wanted his wife dead; there was definite evidence he had attacked her recently, bruising her neck ... all the relationships of course were a tangle, and no concern of mine. Yet the possibility that Mildred had been murdered was intriguing. I am curious by nature. Also I knew that if anything mysterious had happened I would be able to get the beat on every newspaper in New York for the glory of the N.Y. Globe, my old paper, and myself. I decided, all things considered, that I should do a bit of investigating. Justice didn’t concern me much. But the puzzle, the danger, the excitement of following a killer’s trail was all I needed to get involved. Better than big-game hunting, and much more profitable ... if I didn’t get killed myself in the process.
I made up my mind to get the story, whatever it was, before the week end was over. I nearly did too.
I dressed and went downstairs.
Our doughty crew was gathered in the drawing room, absorbing gin.
To my surprise Brexton was on hand, looking no different than he had the night before when he made martinis. In fact, he was making them when I joined the party.
Everyone was on his best graveyard behavior. Gloom hovered in the air like a black cloud. I waded through it to the console where Brexton stood alone, the noise of the cocktail shaker in his hands the only sound in the room as the guests studiously avoided each other’s gaze.
“What can I do you for?” were, I’m afraid, the first words the bereaved husband said to me when I joined him. For a moment I had a feeling that this was where I came in: his tone was exactly the same as the night before.
“A martini,” I said, reliving the earlier time. I half expected to see his wife examining art books on the table opposite but tonight her absence was more noticeable than her presence had been the evening before. He poured me one with a steady hand. “I want to thank you,” he said in a low voice,” for handling the press.”