Liz’s aunt belonged to the top-drawer-but-one old guard: a group of middle-aged ladies who played bridge together, deplored the wicked influences which each year gained ground in the village, whispered about the depravities and
bad taste of those richer than they, smiled tolerantly at the nervous carefulness of those poorer and, in general, had themselves a good time while their husbands, purple of face, slow of mind, wheezed about golf scores in the bar.
Liz spared me her aunt and we found ourselves a vacant table close to the pool where we drank a newly invented cocktail, the work of the club bartender who was obviously some kind of genius: gin, white mint, mint leaves, a dash of soda. I looked forward to getting drunk. The sun was warm, though late. The salt dried with delicate tickle on my skin. Liz was beside me . . . everything was perfect except Dick Randan who joined us, wearing a jazzy pair of plaid trunks which set off the sallowness of his skin, the millions of visible sharp bones in his skinny body.
“Playing hooky, I see,” he said with a boom of heartiness in imitation of the old bucks at the bar. Uninvited, he sat down.
“How are you today, Miss Bessemer?” He turned his spectacles in her direction. I wanted to kick him.
“Fine, thank you,” and Liz gave him her best Vivien-Leigh-as-Scarlet-O’Hara smile.
“I suppose you heard about what happened to us last night after we left you.”
“Yes,” said Liz softly and she fluttered her eyelids shyly; she was giving him the business and I almost burst out laughing. Randan fell deeply.
“It’s been a terrible strain,” he said tensely, flexing one minuscule bicep.
“You must have nerves of absolute steel!” Liz trilled.
“Well, not exactly but I guess Pete here has told you a little what it’s like.”
“I should crack up in five minutes,” said that girl of stone with an adoring glance at both of us.
“It’s not easy,” said Randan with lips heroically thinned. I intervened. “Was I missed at the house?”
“No, the guard saw you coming over here with Miss Bessemer.”
“Oh?” I waited to hear more of what the guard saw but evidently he was a man of discretion. Randan went on: “So I thought I’d come over and see who was around. I was getting a bit tired of that atmosphere. You know Allie is still knocked out, don’t you?”
“I thought she was up by now.”
Randan shook his head. “No, she’s been raving, in an awful state. Nobody's allowed near her except Greaves. I finally went to him . . . you know, as next of kin, and demanded a report on her condition. He told me she hadn’t made sense since early this morning. I told him her place was in a hospital but he said she was under expert medical care, whatever that is around here.”
Liz stopped her teasing at last, enthralled as usual by 74
our situation. "Do you think they’ll really arrest Mr. Brexton?” she asked.
Randan shrugged. “It's hard to say. Some of us aren’t entirely sure he’s responsible,” he added weightily.
“Oh, but it has to be Mr. Brexton.”
“Why is that?” I was surprised by her confidence.
“Because only a man could have cut Mr. Claypoole’s throat. Peter hadn’t any reason to do that, so that leaves just Brexton.”
“And me,” said Randan, nodding. “I’m a suspect too.”
“Oh, but you were out that night; besides you wouldn’t kill your uncle . . . anyway even if you could’ve there was no way for you to kill Mrs. Brexton since you were in Boston...”
“Spending the day with friends,” added Randan stuffily. “Don’t think I didn’t have to prove to Greaves that I was up there when it happened.”
“So then you have two alibis, which rules you out. Only poor Mr. Brexton could’ve done both murders.”
“Very neat,” I said. “But suppose ‘poor Mr. Brexton’ has an alibi for the second murder and a good explanation for the first?”
“What’s that?" They both looked at me curiously.
“I have no intention of telling either of you anything until you read it tomorrow in the Globe. But I will say that I happen to know Brexton was with Allie Claypoole at the time of the murder.”
Randan looked at me with some interest. “Are you sure of this?”
“Certainly. And I think it rules him out.”
“Unless . . .” Liz paused. We both looked at her, a little embarrassed by the sudden consequences of what I’d said.
“Unless what?” Randan's voice was edgy.
“Unless, well, they did it together . . . which might explain why she went to pieces afterwards.” This fell cold and unexpected between us.
“Miss Claypoole is my aunt . . .” began Randan dryly.
Liz cut him short with luminous apologies. “I didn’t mean anything, really. I was just talking. I don’t know anything about anything; just what I’ve read and been told. I wouldn’t for the world suggest that she or anyone . . .” Liz brought the scene to a polite end. But we left her, after another round of drinks, with the definite sensation that something shocking had happened, that some strange vista had been unexpectedly opened.
We were halfway down the beach to the house before either of us spoke. It was Randan who broke the silence. “I can’t believe it,” he said finally.
“About your aunt and Brexton? Well, it was just one of Liz’s more hairbrained theories.”
“But the damned thing is it might make sense to that fool Greaves; I couldn’t let that happen.”
“I’m sure it won’t occur to him.”
“Won’t occur to him? What else will occur to him when he hears they were together? It leaves only three other possibilities: myself, Miss Lung and Mrs. Veering. I wasn’t around and I don’t think the two ladies have any motive. Brexton was trying to bluff you.”
I nodded. “I’ve taken that into account. It’s more than possible.”
Randan shook his head worriedly. “But that doesn’t make sense because when Allie recovers she’ll deny his story . . . if he’s made it up.”
I was soothing. “There’s probably more to the murder than we know. Maybe he was killed before the time supposed. Maybe Brexton zipped out of the house, murdered him and then came back in again, all under the pretext of going to the bathroom.”
“Too complicated.” But his face brightened as he considered these complexities. “Anyway we’ve got to look after Allie now. I’m going to suggest they put an extra guard on duty just to look after her.”
“Why?"
“Well, if he was bluffing he won’t want her to come to, will he?” The logic was chilling, and unarguable.
We found Greaves standing in his crumpled gray business suit along on the terrace, studying the swing.
“How’s my aunt?" asked Randan.
“Where the hell you been?” Greaves looked at him irritably. “I wanted to talk to you."
“I went over to the Club. Is she . .
“Still the same.”
“What did you want to ask me?”
“We’ll go into that after dinner.”
Randan then demanded a full-time guard for Allie which was refused on the grounds that two plain-clothes men in the house and a full-time nurse was quite enough. When Greaves demanded to know why protection was needed, Randan clammed up, then, with a look at me to implore silence, he went into the house to change for dinner.
Something occurred to me just as I was about to go inside myself. “I was wondering,” I said, “why you haven’t asked me any more questions about that note you found, the one you thought I’d manufactured for your amusement.”
“You said you didn’t, so that’s that.” But this fell flat.
“You think you know who fixed it, don’t you?” ■