“And he isn’t as tall as Uncle Bob either, or as dark,” she concluded.
“Good. And Mother?”
“Soft like a kitten. With sky-blue eyes and hair like black clouds. Curly, not ropy like mine.”
“Is that the way Daddy described her?” Wallace asked, dismissing Burns with another twitch of his eye.
“Daddy, or Uncle Bob. I can’t remember. Anyway, it’s the way she felt.”
“I guess Uncle Bob was Daddy’s brother, not Mother’s.”
She nodded, fastening her eyes again in that still, almost expressionless concentration on the doll, not seeming to hear either the rasp of the dial under Burns’s finger or the spare, pointed words, the first-fired arrow of the hunter which, even if it missed its mark, would land somewhere and so change, however infinitesimally, the pattern of things as they now existed. “All right. Where did they go?”
“It doesn’t matter. They said you’d take care of me.”
“Scheming, heartless devils!” The words burst from the old Inspector. “That’s what they are. To leave a child—” For only the second time since they had come into the room, his words were addressed to Burns.
When the call had come to Police Headquarters in the thin, child’s voice they had, of course, thought it was a hoax. But the Inspector was through for the day and so was Burns, so they rode over to River Lane together just on the one chance in a hundred that it wasn’t some teen-ager holding her nose and making her voice high and talking through a handkerchief stretched over the mouthpiece in an effort to get some friend — or enemy of the moment — into trouble.
The Inspector and Burns hadn’t yet been out on a case together — Burns was pretty new in the department — and the difference in age and rank, added to their lack of knowledge of each other, had kept conversation at a minimum.
Betty set the doll firmly on the top of the desk, turning to look fully for the first time at Wallace. “That isn’t true,” she said angrily. “You said that because you think I was scared, because you think they shouldn’t have left me with Uncle Bob. But I wasn’t scared. Death is nothing to be afraid of.”
“Who told you that?” For a moment Wallace forgot he was talking to a child. “The same person who told you to say your uncle died from natural causes?”
She nodded. “Daddy. But he didn’t say exactly that. He said Uncle Bob died as the natural result of a chain of events.”
“And did he tell you who killed him?”
“He didn’t have to,” she said. “I knew.”
“Well, who?” Wallace asked, staring hard at her.
“We all did.”
Wallace drew a deep and exasperated breath. Across the room Burns stared thoughtfully at a blue painting in a blue frame — either undersea or stratospheric — then shrugged and opened a door which led to one of the bedrooms off the living room.
“Look, honey,” Wallace said. “I have a little girl of my own who was your age once. She looked a little like you, too — only she was blonder. And she used to sit on my lap a lot. Just like this.
“Did you ever sit on your Daddy’s lap, and put your head against his chest?” He put one big, hairy hand over her face, almost covering it, and pressed it back. “And did you ever, then, talk about things you’d never talk about when you were sitting up looking at him? And weren’t those things the true things, because you couldn’t possibly say anything that wasn’t true when you were leaning back against him, hearing his heart beat under your ear?”
“Yes,” she said softly. “Only Daddy told me the true things then.”
“Tell me some of them. Tell me some of the true things Daddy told you.”
“That I was strong. That I could take care of Mother. That I shouldn’t be afraid of anything — not even death.”
“And then, after Uncle Bob died,” Wallace asked gently, “did Daddy tell you to tell me you had all killed him?”
“No. I knew we had. Because I knew I’d helped to start it.”
“But who fired the gun?” Wallace demanded, “and why?”
“That doesn’t matter. It was when I switched the letters that counted. And that’s part of ‘why.’”
“… Tess! Tess! I’ve won First Prize!”
She yawned, opening her pink mouth so the white little teeth showed, close-set and sharp, like a frame around a picture of her tongue; then burrowed deeper into the soft nest of quilts and pillows.
“What?” she asked dully.
“The picture. The Fellows Contest. I’ve won it! Only,” he paused, his wide forehead wrinkling, “the check isn’t here.”
She roused slightly. She was fully dressed. It was late afternoon but she had been drinking and had gone to bed to sleep it off.
“You didn’t win,” she said, “and you never will. Why don’t you give up trying?”
“This time I did! Here’s the letter. It’s addressed to me, see? Mr. P. Lorman—” He started to hand it to her, then withdrew it suddenly and carried it to the window, snapping the shade to the top with such force that it twirled around until the circle at the end finally stopped it.
Her laughter started slowly, only a faint titter at first, but it grew deeper and turned raucous, gaining impetus and strength, until, at the end, she was rolling on the bed. She raised her knees to her chest, then flung her legs straight, beating her feet and holding her aching stomach.
“That kid,” she spluttered. “That kid’ll do anything for you…”
“Uncle Bob left the letter saying he’d won,” Betty said, “and I erased the R, so that it looked like a P, and then I opened Daddy’s envelope — it wasn’t stuck tight — and saw that he only got Honorable Mention. So I put Uncle Bob’s letter in and glued it shut again.
“I thought it would make him happy,” she said. “I’d forgotten about the check. And it did make him happy for a minute. But that just wasn’t worth the awful way he felt when he found out what I’d done. And it wasn’t worth the awful fight he had either.”
“With Uncle Bob?” Wallace asked. “Was that this morning?”
“No, with Mother, because Mother laughed. And it wasn’t this morning. It was a long time ago.”
“Well, let’s get back to this morning. Did you go to school today? Was Uncle Bob lying there on the floor when you got home?”
“Yes, he was dead when I got home,” Betty said. “You don’t have to be afraid to say the word. Daddy was here and he talked to me and then they gave me the note to read over the telephone and they kissed me and they left.”
“You said Daddy was here, and then they kissed me. Where was Mother when you got home?”
Before she answered, Betty sat up straight, taking her head away from Wallace’s chest. “Mother was here,” she said after a moment. “In the bedroom.”
“And was Mother upset?”
“Yes. So was Daddy. But this morning she was happier than she’s ever been.”
“Now put your head back,” Wallace pressed gently against her face, “and tell me everything that happened since you got up this morning. You washed your face and brushed your teeth and…”
“I’m all dressed, Mother. May I have breakfast now?”
“Give her breakfast, Peter. I’m sick.”
“What’s it from this time?”
“What’s it ever from? Rotgut.”
“Why do you drink it?”
“Why do I drink it? he asks. I drink it to escape, that’s why!”
“To escape what, Tess? Your guilty conscience? Because you told me Betty wasn’t mine?”
“It’s the truth.”