This was irritating. “Well, no matter how you heard it, I intend to do a series on this case for the Globe, assuming there really was a murder done, which I doubt.”
“Very interesting.” Greaves looked at me calmly. At that moment one of the policemen came in and whispered something in his ear. Greaves nodded and the other handed him a handkerchief containing two small cylindrical objects. The policeman withdrew.
“Sleeping pill containers?” I guessed that one right.
He nodded, carefully opening the handkerchief. “As a professional journalist and amateur sleuth, Mr. Sargeant, you should be interested to know that they were found in two places: one bottle in Mrs. Brexton’s jewel box; the other in Fletcher Claypoole’s bathroom. Both contain the same barbiturate found in Mrs. Brexton’s system. Our problem is to determine, if possible, from which bottle the pills she took (or was given) came.”
“Just like spin-the-bottle, isn’t it?”
“That will be all, Mr. Sargeant.”
I had one more shot to fire. I let him have it: “The bruise on Mrs. Brexton’s neck was made before she went swimming. I noticed it last night at dinner.”
“You’re very observant, Mr. Sargeant. Thank you.”
CHAPTER THREE
1
SHORTLY after one o’clock, I sneaked down the backstairs of the house, across the deserted kitchen and out the back door. The policeman on guard was faced the other way, sprawled in a wicker armchair at the corner of the house. I ducked down behind the dunes, cursing the clear black night in which the white moon rode like a searchlight, casting dense shadows across the dunes, scattering silver light on the cold sea.
I made it to the road, however, without being observed. We’d all been told to remain in the house until further notice and I’d excused myself as soon as possible and gone up to bed, praying the dance wouldn’t be over yet.
It wasn’t.
Easthampton is a funny place with any number of sets, each mutually exclusive. The center of the village’s summer life of course is the group of old-timers who belong to the Ladyrock Yacht Club, a rambling building with a long pier, situated a mile or so north of Mrs. Veering’s house, on the road to Ammagansett.
Members of the Club are well-to-do (but not wealthy) socially accepted (but not quite “prominent") of good middle-class American stock (proud of their ancient lineage which goes back usually to some eighteenth-century farmer). Their names are not known to the general public yet they feel that America is a pyramid at the apex of which will be. found themselves, a delusion nurtured by the fact that they are not accepted by the rich and the great while they refuse to associate with those poorer than themselves. Their favorite word, however, their highest praise is “nice.” You hear that word every few minutes in their company. So-and-so is nice while somebody else isn’t. They have divided the world neatly between the nice and the not-nice and they’re pretty happy with their side of the border.
Part of being nice means you belong to the club and deplore the presence in the community of such un-nice elements as Jews, artists, fairies and celebrities, four groups which, given half a chance, will, they feel, sweep all that’s nice right out to sea. Fortunately the other elements are not conscious of them; otherwise, there could be trouble in this divided village.
As it is, the painters and such like mind their own business in the south end of the town while their nicer neighbors live contentedly together in big houses and small cottages near the Ladyrock; they go to the John Drew Theater in the town; they give parties for one another where at least half the guests get drunk and the other half get offended; they swap wives and husbands while their children coast around at great speed in new cars from Hampton to Hampton wrapping themselves periodically around telephone poles. A typical resort community, and a nice one.
The clubhouse was lighted with Japanese lanterns. A good band was playing. College boys and girls were necking on the dark pier which extended out into the sea. After a fumble with a pile of cards at the door, I was let in to join the nice people who were, all in all, a fairly handsome crew, divided evenly between the well-groomed, well-fed, middle-aged and the golden young on their summer vacation. The middle generation, mine, were all off working to make enough money to get a summer place out here and, at forty, to join the Ladyrock Yacht Club.
Liz found me at the bar where I was ordering a Manhattan and hoping she’d come along to sign for it.
She was beautiful, in black and white with something or other shining in her hair: her eyes glittered and she was pleasantly high.
“Oh, it’s wonderful you got away! I was afraid you wouldn’t be able to.” She signed for my drink like a good girl. “Come on, let’s dance.”
“Not until I’ve had this.”
“Well, come on out on the pier then. I want to talk to you.” We made our way slowly across the dance floor. Young and old bucks pawed Liz who apparently was the belle of this ball. Several old school friends of mine, bald and plump (guests like myself; not yet members) greeted me and I knew at least a dozen of the girls, which Liz didn’t like.
“You’re such a flirt,” she said, once we were on the pier. The moon shone white upon our heads. The young lovers were farther out the pier. A number of alcoholics reeled cheerfully along the boardwalk which separated the pier from the club itself.
“I’ve just been around a long time.”
But she was more interested in the murder. And she knew it was murder. “It’s all over town!” she said excitedly. “Everybody says Brexton drowned her.”
“I wonder how that rumor started?” I hedged.
“Oh, you know and you won’t tell me.” She looked at me accusingly. “I promise I won’t breathe a word to anybody.” “On your honor as a Girl Guide?”
“Oh, Peter, tell me! You were there. You saw it happen, didn’t you?”
“I saw it happen all right.” I put my empty glass down on the railing and put one arm around her; she shook away.
“You have to tell,” she said.
“Don’t I appeal to you?”
“Men don’t appeal to women, as you well know,” she said loftily. “We are only interested in homemaking and, on top of that, our sexual instinct does not fully develop until the late twenties. I’m too young to have any responses.”
“But I'm too old. The male, as we all know, reaches his sexual peak at sixteen after which he declines steadily into a messy old age. I am long past my prime ... an erotic shell, capable of only a minor...”
“Oh, Peter, tell me or I’ll scream!” Her curiosity brought an end to our Kinsian dialogue. It has recently become the aim of our set to act entirely in accordance with the master’s findings and what the majority do and feel we do and feel, more or less. I was all ready to launch into the chapter on premarital petting which leads to climax but not penetration; unfortunately my companion, deeply interested in murder like any healthy girl, had begun to scream.
“For God’s sake, shut upl” I said nervously. Luckily only alcoholics were on the terrace ... a trio of minor executives in minor banks applauded softly her first scream; the couples on the pier were all engaged in premarital petting (collegetype) and chose not to hear her.
“You’ll tell me?” she took a deep breath, ready for a loud scream.
“There’s nothing to tell. Mrs. Brexton took four sleeping pills, went in swimming and drowned before we could get to her.”
"Why did she take four sleeping pills?”