“Yes, dear.”
“You’re crazy.”
“No,” she said. “It’s your gun, Pelly. A big gun with a very long barrel. I think they said it was either seven inches or seven and a half, I’ve forgotten which, and there was a little chip out of a corner near the end of the butt... You remember you were showing me your collection, and—”
“Good God!”
“Yes?” she asked quietly.
“Great heavens, I’d forgotten that,” Pelly said with an exclamation of dismay.
“Forgotten what, darling?”
“That Ralph borrowed that gun about a month ago. Remember when he went out on that deer-hunting trip? He said he wanted a revolver. I let him take that one, and he’s never returned it.”
“I wish you’d told me that in advance. Then I could have told the police that it was a gun my husband had taken with him on his camping trip. But you didn’t tell me... That’s what comes of not confiding in me.”
“Not confiding in you!” he exclaimed. “You knew he had that gun! You knew it was mine. You followed him up to Petrie, killed him with it, and... and—”
“Don’t, darling,” she said. “It isn’t going to do you any good, trying to blame it on me. Because I won’t take it, you know, and that’s going to make things very, very difficult for you. Can they trace the gun to you — through the numbers I mean?”
He dropped into a chair, put his elbows on his knees, propped his chin in his hands, stared dejectedly at the floor, completely dismayed. “I don’t know,” he said, and then after a moment added: “Perhaps not. I picked that gun up at a dude ranch in Montana several years ago.”
“You’re doing that very nicely, Pelly. Have you rehearsed it?”
“Rehearsed what?”
“The act you’re putting on for the police. You don’t need to rehearse it any more. You’re perfect, darling, absolutely perfect. Don’t do it too much, or your performance might become too set.”
He said: “I might have known it would have come to something like this when I started playing around with you. You’re too damn cold-blooded... I suppose you wanted his insurance and couldn’t stand the notoriety incident to a divorce... No, the notoriety wouldn’t have bothered you so much. It’s the idea of being thrown out without any property. You broke up his home five years ago. You did it damned cleverly. You knew what you were after when you did it, and now I suppose—”
“Darling, don’t you want me to have Arthur bring you a Scotch and soda?”
He said: “Shut up. Keep that damned butler out of here. I think he’s a snoop who is suspicious already.”
There was another interval of silence. “Of course, darling,” Mrs. Pressman said, “I’m not going to tell the police that it’s your gun... Not unless you make me.”
He didn’t say anything to that.
Mrs. Pressman started opening telegrams with a paperknife. “People are so thoughtful, so considerate,” she said. “Some of them sent the nicest telegrams.”
After a while Pelly said: “It’s all so damned cold-blooded and useless, Sophie.”
“What is?”
“You framing it on me. If anything happened, you could beat the case hands down. Women as poised and as beautiful as you are can always get away with a little husband-shooting. He was having an affair with his secretary, and when you found it out he laughed at you, and asked you what you were going to do about it.”
She studied him thoughtfully. “Go on, Pelly.”
“That’s all there is to it. You had discovered him in his secret love-nest up near Petrie. You went there to ask him to please give this woman up and return home. He laughed at you. He had a suitcase lying open on a chair. This gun was in it. You wanted to frighten him, so you grabbed the gun. He jumped at you and started trying to wrest the gun away from you. Your finger was locked in the trigger guard. You screamed that he was hurting you and tried to jerk your hand away. Then you heard a terrific roar — and there he was, lying dead at your feet. You loved him, and you threw yourself on his body, crying to him to open his eyes, to speak to you... You realized he was dead. After what seemed hours to you, you closed his suitcase, took it with you, and went home.”
She considered that for some little time. “You have a good imagination, Pelly.”
“It’s the truth. They’d acquit you.”
“Don’t they sometimes send women to the women’s prison at Tehachapi — for life?”
“Not you. They’d acquit you and want to kiss you!”
“No, dear,” she said. “I don’t want any of it. I wouldn’t do that for you. I don’t love you enough. Your great anxiety to save your own precious skin has done something to me. If you really loved me, you’d swear you did it, to save me from being convicted. No, Pelly, dear, definitely not. I don’t want any of it.”
Pelly got to his feet again. “Let me think this over. Something’s got to be done.”
She looked up at him and smiled. “And don’t forget about that little minx, that agate-eyed little secretary of Ralph’s. Do you know, after hearing what you said about Ralph and her, I’m beginning to think that he might have been interested in her. I let her stay on just a little too long. Ralph was very impressionable, you know.”
“What time do the police think the murder was committed?” Baxter asked.
She smiled. “You phrased the question very adroitly. What time do the police think the murder was committed... Let me see... As I remember it, it was some time along in the evening. An oil lamp had been lit. The autopsy surgeon says it might have been any time after four o’clock in the afternoon and before eleven at night. He’s afraid to try fixing it any closer than that.”
Pelly started for the door. “I’ll see what I can think up,” he promised, without enthusiasm. “It’s a ticklish business. I’ll want you to back me up in any statements I make.”
“Oh, of course; but just be certain that I know what they are... And don’t leave without kissing me, darling. You know you’re all I have to turn to now. It will be a year before you can marry me without exciting comment, but I wouldn’t want to feel that your affection was getting cold. That would never do. Not if I’m willing to forgive you for — well, you know, what you did.”
For a long moment he stood facing her without moving. Then he walked toward her, put his arms around her, kissed her, and almost jerked away, as though there had been something repellent in the embrace.
She laughed, a cooing, throaty laugh. “Still play-acting with yourself, Pelly? Come, dear, kiss me with more fire, more passion! Kiss me tenderly. Let your lips cling to mine as though you hated to leave me... And you won’t ever leave me now, dear. You’ll be true to me as long as — as long as I want you.”
Chapter 18
The girl at the counter in the telegraph office smiled cordially.
“Yes, we have a telegram for you, Mr. Wiggins. Just a moment... Here it is.”
Gramps pulled back the flap of the freshly sealed envelope, extracted the folded sheet of yellow paper on which a paper ribbon of typed words had been pasted he message read:
COURTESIES EXTENDED BETWEEN COUNTIES IN POLICE MATTERS STOP WHEN WE HAVE ANYTHING TO DO IN LOS ANGELES COUNTY WE ADVISE CHIEF OF POLICE IF WITHIN CITY LIMITS OR SHERIFF IF IN COUNTY OR SOMETIMES BOTH REQUESTING CO-OPERATION STOP ANY TIME SANTA DELBARRA COUNTY FEELS IT NEEDS ASSISTANCE IN LOS ANGELES WILL REQUEST PROPER AUTHORITIES TO CO-OPERATE STOP DISLIKE TO PUT DAMPENER UPON YOUR EFFORTS WHICH NO MATTER HOW CLEVER ARE STILL AMATEURISH BUT SITUATION WILL BE GREATLY CLARIFIED IF YOU CONFINE YOUR DETECTIVE ACTIVITIES TO READING PUZZLING CASES IN CURRENT MAGAZINES STOP YOU LEFT YOUR TRAILER PARKED IN MY DRIVEWAY IN SUCH A POSITION CAN’T GET MY CAR OUT OF GARAGE WITHOUT MOVING IT AND CAN’T MOVE IT WITHOUT POSSIBLE DAMAGE TO TRAILER HITCH STOP MILRED JOINS ME IN SENDING KINDEST REGARDS SINCERELY YOURS