They thought they might find a clue to Jaffrey's death in the few things contained in the manila envelope Hardesty gave them. But in the collection taken from John Jaffrey's pockets they could read nothing at all. A comb, six studs and matching cufflinks, a copy of The Making of a Surgeon, a ballpoint pen, a bundle of keys in a worn leather pouch, three quarters and a dime-Sears spread it over his lap in the front seat of Ricky's old Buick. "A note was too much to hope for," Sears said, and then leaned gigantically back and rubbed his eyes. "I'm beginning to feel like a member of an endangered species." He straightened up again and looked at the mute assortment of objects. "Do you want to keep any of this yourself, or should we just give it to Milly?"
"Maybe Lewis would like the studs and cufflinks."
"Let's give them to him. Oh. Lewis. We'll have to tell him. Do you want to go back to the office?"
They sat numbly on the warm cushions of Ricky's old car. Sears removed a long cigar from his case, snipped off the tip, and without bothering to go through the usual rituals of sniffing and looking, applied his cigar lighter to it. Ricky wound his window down uncomplaining: He knew that Sears was smoking out of reflex, that he was unconscious of the cigar.
"Do you know, Ricky," he said around it, "John is dead and we've been talking about his cufflinks?"
Ricky started his car. "Let's get back to Melrose Avenue and have a drink."
Sears put the pathetic collection back into the manila envelope, folded it in half and slid it into one of the pockets of his coat. "Watch where you're driving. Has it escaped your attention that it's snowing again?"
"No, it has not," Ricky said. "If it starts this early and if it gets much worse, we could find ourselves snowed in before the end of winter. Maybe we should lay in some canned food, just to be on the safe side." Ricky flicked on his headlights, knowing that Sears would soon begin to issue commands about this. The gray sky which had hung over the town for weeks had darkened nearly to black, broken by clouds like combers.
"Humph," Sears snorted. "The last time that happened-"
"I was back from Europe. Nineteen-forty-seven. Terrible winter."
"And the time before that was in the twenties."
"Nineteen-twenty-six. The snow almost covered the houses."
"People died. A neighbor of mine died in that snow."
"Who was that?" Ricky asked.
"Her name was Viola Frederickson. She was caught in her buggy. She just froze to death. The Fredericksons had John's house, in fact." Sears sighed again, wearily, as Ricky turned into the square and went past the hotel. Snowflakes like balls of cotton streaked past the dark windows of the hotel. "For God's sake, Ricky, your window's open. Do you want to freeze us both?" He raised his hands to lift the fur collar nearer his chin, and saw the cigar protruding from between his fingers. "Oh. Sorry. Habit" He lowered his own window and dropped the cigar through it. "What a waste."
Ricky thought of John Jaffrey's body lying on a stretcher in a cell; of breaking the news to Lewis; of the bluish skin stretched over John's skull.
Sears coughed. "I can't understand why we haven't heard from Edward's nephew."
"He'll probably just turn up." The snow slackened off. "That's better." Then thought, well, maybe not: the air had a peculiar midday darkness which seemed unaffected by his headlights. These were no more than a glow nearly invisible at the front of the car. It was the objects and oddments of the town which instead seemed to glow, not with the yellow glow of headlights but whitely, with the white of the clouds still boiling and foaming overhead-here a picket fence, there a door and molding shone. Here a scattering of stones in a wall, there naked poplars on a lawn. Their bloodless color reminded Ricky eerily of John Jaffrey's face. Above these random shining things the sky beyond the boiling clouds was even blacker.
"Well, what do you flunk happened?" Sears demanded.
Ricky turned into Melrose Avenue. "Do you want to stop off at your house for anything first?"
"No. Do you have an opinion or don't you?"
"I wish I knew what happened to Elmer Scales's sheep."
Now they were pulling up in front of Ricky's house and Sears was showing obvious signs of impatience. "I don't give a gold-plated damn for Our Vergil's sheep," he said; he wanted to get out of the car, he wanted to end the discussion, he would have growled like a bear if Ricky had mentioned the apparition of barefooted, boneheaded Fenny Bate on his staircase-Ricky saw all this, but after he and Sears had left the car and were walking up the path to the door he said, "About that girl this morning."
"What about her?"
Ricky put his key in the slot. "If you want to pretend that we need a secretary, fine, but…"
Stella opened the door from within, already talking. "I'm so glad both of you are here. I was so afraid you'd go back to stuffy Wheat Row and pretend that nothing had happened. Pretend to work and keep me in the dark! Sears, please, come in out of the cold, we don't want to heat all outdoors. Come in!" They shuffled into the hall and moving like two tired carthorses, took off their coats. "You both look just awful. There's no question of mistaken identity then, it was John?"
"It was John," Ricky said. "We can't really tell you any more, Stella. It looks like he jumped from the bridge."
"Dear me," Stella said, all her momentary brightness gone. "The poor Chowder Society."
"Amen," Sears said.
After late lunch Stella said that she'd make up a tray for Milly. "Maybe she'll want to nibble something."
"Milly?" Ricky asked, startled.
"Milly Sheehan, need I remind you? I couldn't just let her rattle around in that big house of John's. I picked her up and drove her back here. She's absolutely wrecked, the poor darling, so I put her to bed. She woke up this morning and couldn't find John, and she fretted in that house for hours until horrible Walter Hardesty came by."
"Fine," Ricky said.
"Fine, he says. If you and Sears hadn't been so wrapped up in yourselves, you might have spared a thought for her."
Attacked, Sears raised his head and blinked. "Milly has no worries. She's been left John's house and a disproportionate amount of money."
"Disproportionate, Sears? Why don't you take her tray up and tell her how grateful she should be. Do you think that would cheer her up? That John Jaffrey left her a few thousand dollars?"
"Scarcely a few thousand, Stella," said Ricky. "John willed almost everything he owned to Milly."
"Well, that's as it should be," Stella declared, and stamped off to the kitchen, leaving them both mystified.
Sears asked, "You ever have any trouble deciphering what she's talking about?"
"Now and then," Ricky answered. "There used to be a code book, but I think she threw it out shortly after our wedding. Shall we call Lewis and tell him? We've put it off too long already."
"Give me the phone," Sears said.
Lewis Benedikt
5
Not hungry, Lewis made lunch for himself from habit: cottage cheese, Croghan baloney with horseradish and a thick chunk of Otto Gruebe's cheddar, made by old Otto himself in his little cheese factory a couple of miles outside Afton. Feeling a little upset by his experiences of the morning, Lewis enjoyed thinking of old Otto now. Otto Gruebe was an uncomplicated person, built a little like Sears James, but stooped from a lifetime of bending over vats; he had a rubbery clown's face and enormous shoulders and hands. Otto had made this comment on his wife's death: "You hat a liddle trouble over there in Spain, yeah? They told me in town. It's such a pidy, Lewis." After everyone else's tact, this had moved Lewis immeasurably. Otto with his curd-white complexion from spending ten hours a day in his factory, Otto with his pack of coon dogs- he'd never been spooked a day in his life. Chewing his way through lunch, Lewis thought he would drive up to see Otto someday soon; he'd take his gun and go out looking for coon with Otto and his dogs, if the snow held off. Otto's Germanic hardheadedness would do him good.