Bewildered, as shaky as a defeated boxer on the ropes, Claypoole stood swaying over the dead woman, his eyes on Brexton. He said only two words, said them softly, full of hate. “You devil!” They faced each other over the dead woman’s body. There was nothing any of us could do.
CHAPTER TWO
1
SHORTLY before lunch, to everyone’s surprise, a policeman in plain clothes arrived. “Somebody sent for me,” he announced gloomily. “Said somebody drowned.” He was plainly bored. This kind of drowning apparently was a common occurrence in these parts.
“I can’t think who sent for you,” said Mrs. Veering quickly. “We have already notified the doctor, the funeral home...”
“/ called the police,” said Claypoole. Everyone looked at him, startled. But he didn’t elaborate. We were all seated about the drawing room ... all of us except Brexton who had gone to his room after the drowning and stayed there.
The policeman was curt, wanting no nonsense. “How many you ladiesgemmen witness the accident?”
Those who had said so. Mrs. Veering, a tankard of Dubonnet in one hand and a handkerchief in the other, began to explain how she’d been in the house but if she’d only known that poor Mildred . . .
The policeman gave her one irritable look and she subsided. Her eyes were puffy and red, and she seemed really upset by what had happened. The rest of us were surprisingly cool. Death when it strikes so swiftly, unexpectedly, has an 24
inexplicable rightness about it, like thunder or rain. Later grief, shock, remorse set in. For now we were all a little embarrassed that we weren’t more distressed by the drowning of Mildred Brexton before our eyes.
“O.K,” The policeman took out a notebook and a stub of pencil. “Give me names real slow and age and place of birth and occupation and relation to deceased and anything you remember about the incident.”
There was an uneasy squeak from Mary Western Lung. “I can’t see what our occupations and . . . and ages have to do with . . .”
The policeman sighed. “I take all you one by one and what you tell me is in strict confidence.” He glanced at the alcove off the drawing room.
Mrs. Veering said, “By all means. You must interview us singly and I shall do everything in my power to . . .”
The policeman gestured to Miss Lung to follow him and they crossed the room together, disappearing into the alcove.
The rest of us began to talk uncomfortably. I turned to Allie Claypoole who sat, pale and tense, beside me on the couch. “I didn’t know it could happen like that ... so fast," I said, inadequately.
She looked at me for one dazed moment; then, with an effort, brought me into focus. “Do give me a cigarette.”
I gave her one; I lit it for her; her hands trembled so that I was afraid I might burn her. One long exhalation, however, relaxed her considerably. “It was that awful undertow. I never go out that far. I don’t know why Mildred did . . . except that she is . . . she was a wonderful swimmer.”
I was surprised, recalling the slow awkward strokes. “I thought she looked sort of weak . . .swimming, that is.”
Across the room Mrs. Veering was crying softly into her Dubonnet while Fletcher Claypoole, calm now, his mysterious outburst still unexplained, tried to comfort her. From the alcove I heard a high shrill laugh from Mary Western Lung and I could almost see that greedy fat hand of hers descending in a lustful arc on the policeman’s chaste knee.
“I suppose it was her illness,” said Allie at last. “There’s no other explanation. I’m afraid I didn’t notice her go in. I wasn’t aware of anything until Brexton started in after her.”
“Do you think a nervous breakdown could affect the way somebody swam? Isn’t swimming like riding a bicycle? you do it or you don’t.”
“What are you suggesting?” Her eyes, violet and lovely, were turned suddenly on mine.
“I don’t know.” I wondered why she was suddenly so sharp. “I only thought . . .”
“She was weakened, that’s all. She’d been through a great deal mentally and apparently it affected her physically. That’s all.”
“She might’ve had what they call the ‘death wish.’ ”
“I doubt if Mildred wanted to die,” said Allie, a little drily. “She wasn't the suicide-type ... if there is such a thing.”
“Well, it can be unconscious, can’t it?” Like everyone else I am an expert in psychoanalysis: I can tell a trauma from a vitrine at twenty paces and I know all about Freud without ever having read a line he’s written.
“I haven’t any idea. Poor Brexton. I wonder what he’ll do now."
“Was it that happy a marriage?” I was surprised, remembering the bruise on her neck, the screams the night before: happy didn’t seem the right word for whatever it was their life had been together.
Allie shrugged. “I don’t think there are any very happy marriages, at least in our world, but there are people who quarrel a lot and still can't live without each other."
“They were like that?”
“Very much so . . . especially when she began to crack up ... he was wonderful with her, considering the fact he’s got a terrible temper and thinks of no one but himself. He put up with things from her that . . . well, that you wouldn’t believe if I told you. He was very patient.”
“Was she always this way? I mean the way she seemed last night?”
Allie didn’t answer immediately. Then she said, “Mildred was what people call difficult most of her life. She could charm anybody if she wanted to; if she didn't want to, she could be very disagreeable.”
“And at the end she didn’t want to?”
“That’s about it.”
Mary Western Lung in high good humor emerged, giggling from the alcove. The policeman, red of face and clearly angry, said: “You next,” nodding at Allie. Miss Lung took her place beside me.
“Oh, they’re so wonderful these police people! It’s the first time I’ve ever talked to one that close and under such grim circumstances. He was simply wonderful with me and we had the nicest chat. I love the virile he-man type, don’t you?”
I indicated that I could take he-men or leave them alone.
“But of course you’re a man and wouldn’t see what a woman sees in them.” I resented faintly not being included among that rugged number; actually, our police friend could have been wrapped around the smallest finger of any athlete; however, Miss Lung saw only the glamor of the job . . . the subhuman gutturals of this employee of the local administration excited the authoress of “Book-Chat.” She scrounged her great soft pillow of flank against mine and I was pinned between her and the arm of the couch.
I struck a serious note in self-defense. “Did he have anything interesting to say about the accident?”
The penwoman shook her head. I wondered wildly if there was a bone beneath that mass of fat which flowed like a Dali soft watch over my own thigh; she was more like a pulpy vegetable than a human being, a giant squash. “No, we talked mostly about books. He likes Mickey Spillane.” She wrinkled her nose which altered her whole soft face in a most surprisingly way; I was relieved when she unwrinkled it. “I told him I’d send him a copy of Little Biddy Bit for his children but it seems he isn’t married. So I told him he’d love reading it himself ... so many adults do. I get letters all the time saying . .
I was called next but not before I had heard yet another installment in the life of Mary Western Lung.
The policeman was trying to do his job as quickly as possible. He sat scribbling in his notebook; he didn’t look up as I sat down in the chair beside the Queen Anne desk.