“No, you’re going to have dinner with us,” Milred said, “but go ahead and fix up that drink.”
When he had gone, Milred Duryea looked at her husband, said: “I’ll give you ten to one.”
“That he’s been up to something?” Duryea asked.
She nodded.
Duryea said: “Don’t try to worm it out of him, Milred. It might be better if I didn’t know — just find out whether he’s been in this county, or down in Los Angeles. If it’s here, I suppose I’ll have to do something about it. If it’s down in Los Angeles, we’ll let Nature take its course.”
She said: “You don’t know Gramps. He has all the capacity for destruction of a five-thousand-pound bomb.”
Duryea said positively: “I don’t care about that. If the thing that he’s done wasn’t done in this county, and if he didn’t use his connection with me to put it across, I don’t care a hoot what it is.”
“He wouldn’t use his connection with you,” Milred said. “I know that. He’s scrupulously careful on that score... But what would you do with him, if he got into trouble, Frank?”
“In Los Angeles County?”
“Yes.”
“That’s easy,” Duryea said. “I’d let him go to jail or get fined for contempt of court, or take whatever would happen to any ordinary person who interfered with the administration of justice. In other words, I’d wash my hands of him and let him learn not to interfere in the future.”
“Is that a promise?”
“Yes.”
“Okay then. I feel better. That’s the only way we’re ever going to teach him a lesson.”
Duryea was filling his pipe when Gramps came in, agitating the shaker.
“Now this here cocktail,” Gramps said, “is just a leetle mite different from the one you had the other night. This won’t taste quite as smooth, but it ain’t got too much dynamite in it — not too much.”
Milred said: “We didn’t put any limitations on the dynamite, Gramps. Frank’s feeling low, and we need to cheer him up.”
Gramps stopped shaking the cocktail shaker as though someone had touched a button that switched off the current which was animating his activity. “What’s he low about?”
“Just the routine of things,” Duryea said.
“What kind of routine?”
“The routine of office.”
“You worried about that murder case?”
“I’m always worried about an unsolved murder case.”
“Ain’t solved it yet, eh?”
“Not entirely. I have a very disagreeable duty to perform tomorrow. I’m dreading it.”
“Careful,” Milred warned.
Gramps shook the shaker, very slowly, very deliberately. “Humph! Looks like you’ve uncovered some new evidence that points to an attractive woman... Ain’t that man’s secretary, is it?”
“Whose secretary?”
“Pressman’s.”
Milred said: “Don’t say I didn’t warn you, Frank.”
Duryea said: “So far as I know, I have nothing to discuss with Pressman’s secretary. I don’t think she killed him.”
Gramps brought the tempo of his cocktail shaking back to its former gusto. “Okay,” he said, “that settles it, and as far as I’m concerned, I wouldn’t pull my punches none. I’d go after this here woman, whoever she is, hammer and tongs.”
“What are you talking about?” Duryea asked.
“Pressman’s widow,” Gramps said. “Where the heck are those cocktail glasses, Milred?”
“Who said anything about Pressman’s widow?” Duryea asked sharply.
“You did.”
“I certainly did not.”
“Well, you might as well have said it. All blue about some duty you’ve got to perform. Looks like that had to do with pickin’ on a woman. You’re that type. A man you wouldn’t mind about, but a woman, yes... You’d get the idea you were tryin’ to trap her into a betrayal, that she was tryin’ to save her life an’ you were tryin’ to take it. All that sort of stuff. Lots of people wouldn’t feel that way, but you’re just the kind that would. Okay, it has to be either Mrs. Pressman or the secretary. If it isn’t the secretary, it’s got to be Mrs. Pressman. Personally, I’d give her the works. If you ask me, she’s a cold-blooded little—”
“That’s just the point, Gramps,” Milred said laughingly. “He hasn’t asked you. No one’s asked you. All we asked you for is a drink.”
Gramps, no whit abashed, poured the cocktail into the glasses. “That’s right,” he said. “I was just volunteerin’ a little advice, wasn’t I? Shouldn’t do that. No percentage in it. Wait until they ask for it. Then they appreciate it more... Well, try this; it’ll cheer you up.”
Gramps passed the glasses. “Now the way to drink this here cocktail,” he went on, “is to get the first one down fast, while it’s still got air bubbles in it from the shaking. Then the second one you take kinda medium, and the third one you take right slow to enjoy the flavour.”
Duryea glanced across the rim of his glass at his wife; then tossed off the cocktail. He made tasting sounds with his tongue against the roof of his mouth, said: “Milred, there’s no use talking. It’s the silver lining.”
She laughed and held out her glass for more.
“Taste all right?” Gramps asked.
“Like nectar,” Duryea said. “What’s in it? More of this Mexican liquor?”
“Nope. This here is all north of the Rio Grande, but there’s just a leetle touch of somethin’ in it to shake off the raw taste. You wouldn’t like it if I told you what that was, so just drink it and quit worryin’. What’s this about a silver linin’?”
“It’s the name Milred and I are giving this cocktail. You wouldn’t understand.”
“No,” Milred agreed, “not unless you’d read Emerson’s law of compensation.”
Duryea joined in her laugh at Gramps’ mystification.
“I don’t get that law of compensation business either. Silver linin’ — law of compensation... Oh, well, what do I care! Go ahead an’ drink her down.”
After the second cocktail, Milred felt a warm glow stealing through her veins. She felt a surge of friendship for the somewhat wistful old man, who seemed in some ways so anxious to keep their friendship, and yet in others to be so completely independent of it.
“You,” she told her husband, “can try sipping the third cocktail. I personally am going to lay off it.”
“What’s the matter?” Duryea asked.
“I feel it.”
“Can’t feel that,” Gramps insisted. “That’s as mild as coconut milk. Just got a little fruity tang to it that stings your throat and stimulates your digestive juices, that’s all. Ain’t enough alcohol in it to hurt a kitten.”
Milred said: “Nevertheless, I’m going into the kitchen while I can still get there under my own power. I’ve weighty responsibilities. And if you, Gramp Wiggins, knew what was cooking you’d be the last one to suggest that I betray my trust.”
Gramps pulled his black briar from his pocket. “Okay,” he announced. “I ain’t never one to argue with a person against his moral convictions.”
Milred went out into the kitchen, still feeling that great glow of physical and mental well-being. Once or twice during the next fifteen minutes she looked into the living-room, and, on the occasion of her last inspection, surreptitiously lifted the receiver from the telephone and left it dangling.
The district attorney of Santa Delbarra County was rapidly getting in no condition to answer the phone, and Milred was glad of it. Frank had been taking himself and his responsibilities altogether too seriously. That prosecutor’s job was going to make an old, cynical man out of him before he’d really had a chance to enjoy his youth. And he needed to let go more, to get out and relax. After all, Gramps was a pretty good influence for them... Look at Gramps. Somewhere around the seventies, and younger in many ways than any of them. Responsibilities had never weighed heavily on Gramps. He’d always been a man of wild enthusiasms, always chasing some particular mirage. It had always been a mirage. He’d never caught up with it, but he’d always been just as keen to start out chasing the next one. Perhaps that was the secret of it. Gramps never got discouraged over a failure. He enjoyed the chase as much as the goal itself... There was a moral there. She’d have to think it out sometime... Mildred realized that Gramps certainly had loaded those cocktails.