The waitress who set his place asked him, “Feeling lucky today, Mr. Brown? I could certainly use a long shot, myself, if you’ve got something sure.”
Questions like this made him wince, inwardly, as hopelessly amateurish. How could anyone speak of luck, a long shot and a sure thing, all in the same breath? But he smiled amiably and tried not to sound condescending.
“Maybe. If I find something really hot, I’ll let you know.”
But the waitress scarcely heard him, her mind skipping ahead on a more facetious tangent. “What I wonder about customers doping the horses. Well, maybe you can. But I’d like to see you try something tough, like making book on people. Be honest, Mr. Brown, sometimes you can’t even figure your own wife.”
Brown began a firm reply. “On the contrary,” he said, and then just as firmly stopped.
Without even asking, or caring, which wife the waitress had in mind, the subject was taboo. It was a sore point, besides. He had been about to state that just the opposite was true. His wives ran true to form, he had found, and he only wished — how deeply and painfully he wished! — he could say the same for horses.
But the subject was too distressing to talk about. It would be unwise to speak with too much authority. By this time, the waitress had given him a menu, and gone.
It was a fact, though — and a sad one — that, as Raymond A. Brown, he had suffered reverses in his first two years of marriage with Lucille, and they had cost him nearly all of the $27,000 with which she had opened their joint bank account. Joint bank accounts, like joint ownership of property, Brown regarded surely among man’s finest inventions. There had been a dark period when, if Lucille had thoughtlessly written a check, it was quite possible that their marriage might actually have exploded.
Fortunately, he had grown very fond of a new and recently widowed acquaintance, a lady well worthy of becoming his wife. This was Helen, and she had brought a comfortable $40,000 to her joint bank account with Reynold B. Brown. The name, like the initial, was chosen as an orderly help to Brown’s memory — at that time, he had had no intention of working his way through the alphabet. So, with Helen’s unconscious but timely backing, he had recapitalized and refinanced all around. Naturally, of course, he had devoted his own added insight toward a few final, vitally necessary improvements in the system.
These improvements had helped — but not enough.
His losses had been considerably slowed down. Investments that showed splendid results almost equaled those that failed. There was one year, indeed, when his accounts showed that he had broken practically even.
All the same, his resources were again depleted when he met Marion, and she, too, was welcomed into the firm — though not in those exact words. Her $18,000 contribution to a joint bank account with Richard C. Brown had been modest, but timely and, for a while, it seemed as though the tide had finally turned.
But it hadn’t turned enough — not quite. He met the gay, ornamental, chaotic Bernice, and there came a day — the day he learned she had recently inherited $20,000—when he asked her, too, if she would like to be his helpmate. This was how he became Robert D. Brown, sitting among the financial guides and investment paraphernalia spread out on the table of a quiet Philadelphia restaurant.
This was why he regretted that his success, thus far, had been so moderate. The tide had now, at last, definitely turned. But there were still precarious days, uncertain weeks, ahead.
This was why, while he concentrated on his chops and salad and coffee, he also pondered the mysteries of the alphabet. Would there ever be a Rudolf E. Brown? If so, what would the fellow’s wife be like? He couldn’t help wondering.
He finished lunch and, afterward, went on with his calculations, making the serious decisions of the day. When he had them, as he paid the bill and tipped the waitress, he remembered something.
“Bold Magician in the sixth at Bowie,” he told her. “That’s today’s best.”
“What?”
It was apparent she had forgotten their earlier talk. Brown merely repeated the name of the horse, smiling with professional reserve.
He had a lot to do that afternoon. Place his bets — collect on yesterday’s single winner — call on three or four drugstores with those tiresome cosmetics. This last he considered a waste of time, save for use as an alibi he hoped he would never need.
3
It was seven o’clock that evening when Brown arrived at the big, solid apartment building in Newark, where he and Bernice had established residence. He did not like it, though he felt no fear at sight of a police prowl-car, an ambulance and other official cars, drawn up before the entrance, with a knot of spectators gathered in solemn curiosity on the walk outside.
But he could not down a wave of uneasiness when he exchanged a nod with the elevator man, then received a sudden, startled glance of recognition, quickly veiled and averted. The attendants usually spoke after one of Brown’s trips — and his suitcase showed he was just returning from one. Now they ascended in silence to the fourth floor.
He saw why, when he stepped out. The door of his apartment was open. Beyond it, he saw men obviously in authority, men in uniforms, men in plain clothes, even one man in white. Something unscheduled had occurred, and that alone spelled danger. But this was more than unusual — it was grim. Fright followed his first consternation, then panic, then dread.
Rigidly controlling himself, he walked through the small foyer of the apartment and halted in the middle of the living room. A uniformed police lieutenant looked at his suitcase, then at him. The lieutenant’s stare was sympathetic, but, at the same time, it openly and carefully studied his face. “Mr. Brown?” he asked.
“Yes. What’s the matter?”
“Bad news, I’m afraid. It’s your wife.” The lieutenant paused, letting this register. Brown gave no reaction, except to put down his suitcase, then urgently and fearfully wait to hear more. “I’m Lieutenant Storber. Your wife is dead.”
Brown gave a stunned, disbelieving echo. “Bernice dead? She can’t be. What happened?”
The lieutenant made indirect reply with another question. “Did your wife have any reason to commit suicide, Mr. Brown?”
“Suicide?” Brown’s astonishment was a spontaneous, total denial of the idea. “That’s impossible. It’s silly. Why, she just bought another… No, it’s out of the question.”
“She just bought another what, Mr. Brown?” the lieutenant asked him gently.
Brown answered mechanically, but his features began to come apart. “Another cookbook. Would a person who did that ever think about…? It was a thick one, too.”
“We know. We found it in the kitchen.”
Brown’s knees seemed to become unfastened, and the lieutenant helped him as he sagged into the nearest chair.
“I tell you, there must be a mistake,” he insisted weakly. “You haven’t investigated thoroughly enough. You’ll have to look around some more. When did it happen? How?”
The lieutenant sighed, took out a notebook. An interne emerged from an adjoining room, one used as a lounge and library. Not seeing Brown, he spoke to two men in plain clothes who were giving the living room a cursory inspection.
“D.O.A.,” said the interne. “It looks to me like a stiff dose of cyanide in a cocktail, probably a sidecar. That’s up to the medical examiner’s office. But I’d say she drank it quick, and death was practically instantaneous. At a guess, it must have been six or seven hours ago. Around noon.”