“Your private life, or your private lives, are something for the book. Have you been keeping up two establishments, dividing your time between your mother and your wife?”
“I suppose it’s obvious that I have,” he said tonelessly.
“Does Tish live here in town?”
“She lived in the Los Angeles area. I have no intention of telling you where, and I can assure you you’ll never find the place. There’d be no point in it, anyway, since she’s no longer there.”
“Where and how did she die this time?”
“She isn’t dead. That French death certificate is a fake, as you guessed. But she is beyond your reach. I put her on a plane to Rio de Janeiro on Saturday, and she’ll be there by now.”
Mrs. Deloney said: “You didn’t tell me that!”
“I hadn’t intended to tell anyone. However, I have to make Mr. Archer see that there’s no point in pressing this thing any further. My wife – my ex-wife – is an old woman, and a sick one, and she’s beyond extradition. I’ve arranged for her to have medical care, psychiatric care, in a South American city which I won’t name.”
“You’re admitting that she killed Helen Haggerty?”
“Yes. She confessed to me when I went to see her in Los Angeles early Saturday morning. She shot Helen and hid the gun in my gatehouse. I contacted Foley in Reno primarily to find out if he had witnessed anything. I didn’t want him blackmailing me–”
“I thought he already was.”
“Helen was,” he said. “She learned about my pending divorce in Reno, and she jumped to a number of conclusions, including the fact that Tish was still alive. I gave her a good deal of money, and got her a job here, in order to protect Tish.”
“And yourself.”
“And myself. I do have a reputation to protect, though I’ve done nothing illegal.”
“No. You’re very good at arranging for other people to do your dirty work. You brought Helen here as a kind of decoy, didn’t you?”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand you.” But he shifted uneasily.
“You took Helen out a few times and passed the word that she was your intended. She wasn’t, of course. You were already married to Laura and you hated Helen, with good reason.”
“That’s not true. We were on quite a friendly basis, in spite of her demands. She was a very old friend, after all, and I couldn’t help sympathizing with her feeling that she deserved something from the world.”
“I know what she got – a bullet in the head. The same thing Constance McGee got. The same thing Laura would have got if you hadn’t set Helen up as a substitute victim for Tish.”
“I’m afraid you’re getting much too complicated.”
“For a complicated nature like yours?”
He looked around the room as if he felt imprisoned in it, or in the maze of his own nature. “You’ll never prove any complicity on my part in Helen’s death. It came as a fearful shock to me. Letitia’s confession was another shock.”
“Why? You must have known she killed Constance McGee.”
“I didn’t know it till Saturday. I admit I had my suspicions. Tish was always savagely jealous. I’ve lived with the dreadful possibility for ten years, hoping and praying that my suspicions were unfounded–”
“Why didn’t you ask her?”
“I suppose I couldn’t face it. Things were already so difficult between us. It would have meant admitting my love for Connie.” He heard his own words, and sat quiet for a moment, his eyes downcast, as if he was peering down into a chasm in himself. “I really did love her, you know. Her death almost finished me.”
“But you survived to love again.”
“Men do,” he said. “I’m not the sort of man who can live without love. I loved even Tish as long and as well as I could. But she got old, and sick.”
Mrs. Deloney made a spitting sound. He said to her:
“I wanted a wife, one who could give me children.”
“God help any children of yours, you’d probably abandon them. You broke all your promises to my sister.”
“Everyone breaks promises. I didn’t intend to fall in love with Connie. It simply happened. I met her in a doctor’s waiting room quite by accident. But I didn’t turn my back on your sister. I never have. I’ve done more for her than she ever did for me.”
She sneered at him with the arrogance of a second-generation aristocrat. “My sister lifted you out of the gutter. What were you – an elevator boy?”
“I was a college student, and an elevator boy by my own choice.”
“Very likely.”
He leaned toward her, fixing her with his bright eyes. “I had family resources to draw on if I had wished.”
“Ah yes, your precious mother.”
“Be careful what you say about my mother.”
There was an edge on his words, the quality of a cold threat, and it silenced her. This was one of several moments when I sensed that the two of them were playing a game as complex as chess, a game of power on a hidden board. I should have tried to force it into the open. But I was clearing up my case, and as long as Bradshaw was willing to talk I didn’t care about apparent side-issues.
“I don’t understand the business of the gun,” I said. “The police have established that Connie McGee and Helen were shot with the same gun – a revolver that belonged originally to Connie’s sister Alice. How did Tish get hold of it?”
“I don’t really know.”
“You must have some idea. Did Alice Jenks give it to her?”
“She very well may have.”
“That’s nonsense, Bradshaw, and you know it. The revolver was stolen from Alice’s house. Who stole it?”
He made a steeple of his fingers and admired its symmetry. “I’m willing to tell you if Mrs. Deloney will leave the room.”
“Why should I?” she said from her corner. “Anything my sister could endure to live through I can endure to hear.”
“I’m not trying to spare your sensibilities,” Bradshaw said. “I’m trying to spare myself.”
She hesitated. It became a test of wills. Bradshaw got up and opened the inner door. Through it I could see across a hall into a bedroom furnished in dull luxury. The bedside table held an ivory telephone and a leather-framed photograph of a white-mustached gentleman who looked vaguely familiar.
Mrs. Deloney marched into the bedroom like a recalcitrant soldier under orders. Bradshaw closed the door sharply behind her.
“I’m beginning to hate old women,” he said.
“You were going to tell me about the gun.”
“I was, wasn’t I?” He returned to the sofa. “It’s not a pretty story. None of it is. I’m telling you the whole thing in the hope that you’ll be completely satisfied.”
“And not bring in the authorities?”
“Don’t you see there’s nothing to be gained by bringing them in? The sole effect would be to turn the town on its ear, wreck the standing of the college which I’ve worked so hard to build up, and ruin more than one life.”
“Especially yours and Laura’s?”
“Especially mine and Laura’s. She’s waited for me, God knows. And even I deserve something more than I’ve had. I’ve lived my entire adult life with the consequences of a neurotic involvement that I got into when I was just a boy.”
“Is that what Godwin was treating you for?”
“I needed some support. Tish hasn’t been easy to deal with. She drove me half out of my mind sometimes with her animal violence and her demands. But now it’s over.” His eyes changed the statement into a question and a plea.
“I can’t make any promises,” I said. “Let’s have the entire story, then we’ll think about the next step. How did Tish get hold of Alice’s revolver?”
“Connie took it from her sister’s room and gave it to me. We had some wild idea of using it to cut the Gordian knot.”