There was nothing for us to say. Miss Lung obviously did not believe him. The rest of us didn’t know what to think. "No one can see her until tomorrow,” said Greaves just as Miss Lung got purposefully to her feet.
“Rose is my oldest friend and when she is in her hour of need I must go to her, come what may." The authoress of Little Biddy Bit looked every yard a heroine.
“I’m sorry but I can’t allow it.” Greaves was firm. Miss Lung sat down heavily, her face lowering with anger. Greaves looked at the rest of us thoughtfully.
“This is going to be a difficult night,” he said. “I will tell you right off that we’re waiting for Miss Claypoole to recover and give us her story of what happened the night of her brother’s murder. Until we have her testimony, we can do nothing but wait.”
Awkward silence greeted his candor. Everyone knew what he meant. No one said anything: no one dared look at Brexton who sat doodling with a pencil on a sketch pad. I half expected him to say something out of line but he ignored Greaves.
“Meanwhile,” said Greaves with an attempt at heartiness, “you can do anything you like. We’d prefer for you to stay here but we can’t force you, exactly. Should you want to go out, please check with me or with one of the men on duty. I know all this is unusual procedure but we're in an unusual situation without much precedent to go on. It is my hope, however, that we will be able to call a special court by Friday.”
“What is a special court?" asked Brexton, not raising his eyes from the sketch pad on his knees.
“It’s a court consisting of the local magistrate and a local jury before whom our district attorney will present an indictment of a party or parties as yet unknown for the crime of murder in the first degree.” He gathered strength from the legal jargon. It was properly chilling.
Then, having made his effect, he announced that if anyone needed him he could be found in the downstairs bedroom; he went off to bed.
I went over and sat down beside Brexton, feeling sorry for him . . . also curious to find out what it was that made him seem so confident.
He put the book down. “Quiet week end, isn’t it?” This wasn’t in lhe best of taste but it was exactly what I’d been thinking, too.
“Only four left,” I said, nodding. “In the war we would’ve said it was a jinx company.”
“I’m sure it is too. But actually it’s six surviving, not four, which isn’t bad for a tough engagement.”
“Depends how you reckon casualties. Has Mrs. Veering had heart attacks before? like this?”
“Yes. This is the third one I know of. She just turns blue and they give her some medicine; then she’s perfectly all right in a matter of minutes.”
“Minutes? But she seemed really knocked out, The doctor said she’ll have to stay in bed a day or two.”
Brexton smiled. “Greaves said the doctor said she’d have to stay in bed.”
This sank in, bit by bit. “Then she . . . well, she’s all right now?”
“I shouldn’t be surprised.”
“Bdt why the bluff? Why wouldn’t Greaves let anybody go to her? Why would he say she’d be in bed a few days?” “Something of a mystery, isn’t it?” “Doesn’t make and sense.”
Brexton sighed. “Maybe it does. Anyway, for some reason, she wants to play possum ... so let her.”
“It’s also possible that she might have had a worse attack than usual, isn’t it?”
“Anything is possible with Rose.” If he was deliberately trying to arouse my curiosity he couldn’t have been more effective.
“Tell me, Mr. Brexton,” I spoke quietly, disarmingly, “who killed your wife?"
“No one.”
“Are you sure of this?”
“Quite sure.”
“Then by the same reasoning, Claypoole hit himself on the head, dragged his own body through the sand and cut his own head half off with your palette knife.”
Brexton chuckled. “Stranger things have happened.”
“Like what?”
“Like your knocking yourself out the other morning in the kitchen.”
“And what about that? That I know wasn’t self-inflicted.”
Brexton only smiled.
“Your wife killed herself?”
“By accident, yes.”
“Claypoole . . .”
“Was murdered.”
“Do you know who did it?”
“I didn’t.”
“But do you know who died?”
Brexton shrugged. “I have some ideas.”
“And you won’t pass them on?”
“Not yet.”
I felt as if we were playing twenty questions. From across the room came the high squeal of Miss Lung appreciatively applauding some remark of our young historian.
I tried a frontal attack. “You realize what the police will think if Allie Claypoole testifies that she was, as you say, with you when her brother died?”
“\Vhat will they think?” His face was expressionless.
“That perhaps the two of you together killed him."
He looked at me coolly. “Why would they think that? She was devoted to him. Look the way this thing hit her. The poor child went out of her head when they told her.”
“They might say her breakdown was due to having killed her own brother.”
“They might, but why?”
“They still think you killed your wife. They think Claypoole had something on you. They think you killed him. If Allie says you were with her then they’ll immediately think she was involved too.”
“Logically but not likely. Even allowing the rest was true, which it isn’t, why would she help me kill her brother?”
I fired in the dark. “Because she was in love with you.”
Brexton’s glaze flickered. He lowered his eyes. His hands closed tight on the book in his lap. “You go too far, Mr. Sargeant.”
“I’m involved in this too,” I said, astonished at my luck: by accident I had hit on something no one apparently knew. “I’d like to know where we stand, that’s all.”
“None of your business,” he snapped, suddenly flushed, his eyes dangerously bright. “Allie isn’t involved in any of this. There’ll be hell to pay if anybody tries to get her mixed up in it . . . that goes for the police who are just as liable to court action as anyone.”
“For libel?”
“For libel. This even goes for newspapermen, Mr. Sargeant.”
“I had no intention of writing anything about it. But I may have to ... I mean, if Greaves should start operating along those lines. He’s worried; the press is getting mean. He’s going to have to find somebody to indict in the next few days.”
“He has somebody.”
“You mean you?”
“Yes. I don’t mind in the least. But there won’t be a conviction. I’ll promise you that.” He was grim.
I couldn’t get him to elaborate; I tried another tack. “If neither you nor Allie killed Claypoole, that leaves only three suspects . . . Miss Lung, Mrs. Veering and Randan. Why would any of those three have wanted to kill Claypoole?”
Brexton looked at me, amusement in his eyes. “I have no intention of giving the game away, even if I could, which is doubtful. I’m almost as much in the dark as you and the police. I’ll give you one lead though,” he lowered his voice. “Crime of passion.”
“What do you mean?”
With one quick gesture of his powerful right hand he indicated Miss Lung. “She was in love and she was spurned, as they say.”
“In love with whom?”
“Fletcher Claypoole, and for many years.”
“I thought she was in love with the whole male sex.”