He gave me a slow, amused smile. “You know about that?”
“Not much . . . just gossip. I gather she’s being stuck for a great deal.”
“Quite a bit.” Brexton nodded. “Over a hundred thousand dollars.”
“Can she pay it?”
“I suppose so, but it’ll wreck her income.”
“How does she happen to have to pay all that?”
“Well, the Veerings have a foundry out West. It does well enough and her interest in it pays her a large income. Her late husband’s brother runs the business and looks after everything. Rose has got a good business head herself. She started out as a secretary to old man Veering, the president of the company. He married her, died and left her his share. Now it seems that recently the brother pulled some fast business deals . . . mergers, that kind of thing. I’m not much on business . . . I do know it had something to do with a capital gains tax which really wasn’t, if you follow me. The government found out and now Rose and the brother both have to cough up a hundred thousand cash. . .
“And Mrs. Veering hasn’t got it?”
“Not without selling most of her interest in the foundry.”
“Then you’d say she was in a tough spot?”
“Yes, I’d say she was in a very tough spot.” Brexton spoke slowly, his eyes on the green branch which softly scraped the bars of the window,
I played my hunch. “Was your wife a wealthy woman, Mr. Brexton?”
He knew what I was up to but he gave no sign; he only looked at me without expression. “Yes, she was.”
“She was wealthy on her own . . .not through Mrs. Veering? not through her aunt?”
“That’s right. My wife’s money came from the other side of her family.”
“Did Mrs. Veering try to borrow money from your wife?” Brexton stirred restlessly on the bunk; his hands clasped and unclasped. “Did Allie tell you this?”
“No, I’m just playing a long shot.”
“Yes, Rose tried to get Mildred to help her out of this tax settlement. Mildred refused.”
Neither of us said anything for a moment; then: “Why did your wife refuse?”
“I don’t know. I suppose it was too much money, even for her. They had a terrible scene the night before she was drowned. I guess you heard the screams. Both had awful tempers. Mildred attacked Rose with my palette knife (by the way, Î never saw it again after that night . . . until it was found beside Fletcher’s body). I broke it up and calmed Mildred down.”
“I should’ve thought it would have been the other way around: Mrs. Veering should have been the hysterical one, for having been turned down.”
“They both were. They were a good deal alike, you know: mean-tempered, unbalanced. Mildred wanted to leave the house right then but I talked her out of it; by the next morning she was all right again.”
“Do you think that was why your wife was invited . . . you were both invited for the week end ... to help Mrs. Veering?”
Brexton nodded. “I know it. I think that’s why Mildred got so angry. She knew Rose was getting tired of her behavior. Rose had dropped us flat for almost a year. Then, when this invitation came, Mildred was really kind of bucked up; she always regarded Rose as the social arbiter of the family and it hurt her when Rose wouldn't see us any more. But then when she found out after dinner that first night that we’d only been asked down because Rose needed money, she blew up. I’m afraid I didn't altogether blame her.”
“Do you think your wife, under ordinary circumstances, would have let her have the money?"
Brexton shrugged. “She might have. It was an awful lot though. But then I never did know how much money Mildred had. She always paid her bills and I paid mine. That was part of our marriage agreement."
“You had a written agreement?”
“No, just an understood one. Mildred was a good wife for me . . . strange as that may seem to anybody who only knew her during this last year."
I shifted to the legal aspects of the situation. “What line do you think the prosecution will take?”
“I’m not sure. Something wild, I think. My lawyers are pretty confident but then, considering what I’m paying them, they ought to be.” He chuckled. “They should be able to buy ail the evidence they need. But, seriously, they can’t figure what Greaves has got on his mind. We thought Allie’s testimony would convince even the District Attorney’s office. Instead, they went right ahead and called the Special Court for Friday and stuck me in here.”
“I suppose they’re going chiefly on motive; you killed your wife because you didn’t like her and wanted her money . . . maybe they’ll prove you wanted to marry Allie which would explain why she gave you an alibi.”
“Except why should I want to kill her brother? The one person she was really devoted to?"
"I think they'll just pick a motive out of the air . . . whatever fits . . . and use the presence of your knife beside the corpse as primary evidence.”
“Thin,” said Brexton, shaking his head.
“Fortunately, the prosecution doesn’t know about the quarrel you had with Claypoole after your wife drowned. They probably know what we all know . . that he cursed you when she died . . . but they don’t know about the fight you had in your room, the one I heard while sitting on the porch.”
Brexton’s self-control was admirable. He showed no surprise, only interest. “You heard that?”
“Most of it, yes. Claypoole blamed you for killing your wife. Not directly ... at least I don’t think that's how he meant it. I couldn’t be sure. The impression I got was that he was holding you responsible, in some way, and that he was going to expose you.”
“Well, that was about it.” Brexton’s tone could not have been more neutral, less informative.
“I haven't any intention of telling the District Attorney this.”
“That’s very nice of you.”
“But I’d like to know what it meant . . . that conversation. What you meant when you said 'you’d tell everything too.”
Brexton paused thoughtfully before answering; his quick, shrewd painter’s eyes studying me as though I were a model whose quality he was trying to fix exactly with a line. Then he said: “There’s not much to tell. Mildred hounded Fletcher for the last few years, trying to get him to marry her. He wasn’t interested though he’d been in love with her before she married me. Then, during the last year, he began to change. I think I know why. He started to see her. They took a trip to Bermuda together under assumed names. I found out . . . people always do. I gave Mildred hell, just on general principles. She promptly had a nervous breakdown; afterwards, she asked me for a divorce and I said not yet. I guess that was a mistake on my part. I wasn’t in love with Mildred but I liked her and I was used to her and I suspected Claypoole was interested in her only on account of her money. Allie had told me how their income had begun to shrink these last few years, like everybody else’s. I think Fletcher decided the time had come to get himself a rich wife. He was furious with me for standing in his way. Then, when Mildred drowned, he was positive I had something to do with it, to keep her money for myself, to keep her from marrying him. That’s al! there was to it. He blew up and threatened to accuse me of murder. ... I have a hunch he did, before he died, and I think that’s what Greaves is counting on to get me indicted... Fletcher’s accusation of me before he himself was murdered."
Now it was making sense. “One other thing: what did you mean when you told him you’d drag Allie into the case if he accused you?”
Brexton actually blushed. “Did I say that? I must’ve been near the breaking point. I'd never have done a thing like that. ... I was just threatening, trying to warn him off.”