“That’s a good idea. It’s better than my going alone.”
She went inside and phoned Stuart. It took him quite a while to answer the telephone, because he wasn’t up yet. Stuart was hardly ever out of bed before early afternoon, and Fanny had counted on this when she called.
Stuart agreed to pick her up, although he was somewhat less than enthusiastic about taking a swim, and it took him slightly longer than half an hour to dress and get there.
In the meanwhile Fanny used the time profitably. Returning to the terrace, having detoured en route by way of the basement, she found the tall glass empty and Loren dead to this world if not yet alive in the next. He was, indeed, in such a deep sleep that it gave her a little shock of fear. She was afraid she had been too generous with the drug, and it would never do to have him dying because of that. It couldn’t reasonably be passed off as heart failure, not with Loren’s recent electrocardiograms on record, and the excess of drugs would certainly be detected in an autopsy.
But after a close inspection she was satisfied that she was safe. Loren would not die of the drug, and any dose less than lethal would surely be accepted as normal, for he took the stuff all the time, as was well known.
And so, satisfied, she had merely to tie the wet rawhide strip snugly around Loren’s throat. It was easy to do — Loren was wearing an open-neck sports shirt. Then she carried the tall glass inside, washed it and dried it and put it away, and went upstairs to get a beach bag, into which she put a black swimming suit, brief, a striped towel, immense, and a tube of suntan lotion, economy size. She was waiting downstairs, ready to go, when Stuart arrived.
He was so grumpy from having been wakened early that Fanny was tempted to tell him what she had done, just to cheer him up a little; but she decided that it wouldn’t be wise. She resisted temptation all the way to the Country Club, and finally compromised, as they were arriving, by hinting at just enough to give him something pleasant to anticipate.
“I have a notion,” she said, “that there is going to be a happy surprise in your life today.”
“Yes?” He looked at her disagreeably. “What are you, an astrologer or something?”
“You’ll see,” she said. “You need only be a little patient.”
She wouldn’t tell him any more, not a word, but his humor did improve, and they had a cool pleasant swim in the pool and sat for a while in deck chairs along the side. It was really quite warm in the sun, and so they dressed pretty soon and moved into the clubhouse, where they had cold drinks and played several hands of gin rummy. All in all, it was quite a pleasant afternoon that passed quickly, and it was a little later than Fanny had planned when Stuart got her home again.
“Come in and say hello to Loren,” Fanny said.
“Well, I don’t want to, but I suppose I’d better,” he said.
They walked inside together and Fanny went off ostensibly to look for Loren. She ran upstairs and down again. She looked into several rooms. She called his name. At last, after putting on a good show, she went out to the terrace — and all of a sudden she had the most terrible feeling that things had gone wrong and that Loren would be alive and waiting for her.
But as it turned out, the feeling was no more than a foolish apprehension, for the rawhide had shrunk, as guaranteed by the old Western, and Loren was stone dead.
Working as fast as she could, Fanny began trying to remove the strip of rawhide from Loren’s throat. But it had drawn deeply into the flesh and had become very hard in the sun, and for a fearful moment she thought she might have to call Stuart to help her remove it. Then she remembered the penknife that Loren invariably carried in his pocket.
She finished out the knife, cut the rawhide, and dropped it and the knife into her beach bag, which she had carried all this time. Then, feeling relieved and composed, she went back into the house and found Stuart waiting where she had left him.
“Loren is still out on the terrace,” she said. “He seems to be dead. You had better call the police.”
“Police!” Stuart jumped and stared at her. “Why the devil should I call the police?”
“If I’m not mistaken, Loren has been murdered. Strangled, I believe. He had many enemies, you know. Apparently one of them slipped up behind him and choked him to death.”
“Oh, sure!” Stuart’s eyes, which had popped wide open, were now narrowed. “This wouldn’t be the happy surprise you were talking about, would it?”
“Please don’t waste time, Stuart. Are you going to call the police, or aren’t you?”
“I am not. What I’m going to do is get out of here immediately.”
“Don’t be absurd. You can’t possibly be involved, and neither can I. After all, we were away together all afternoon. Besides, it will only look worse for you if you leave.”
“Not if you don’t tell anyone I was here.”
“I’ll certainly have to tell the police. You know very well that it’s illegal to withhold information in a murder case.”
“It’s also illegal to strangle husbands.”
“I haven’t strangled a husband — not mine nor anyone else’s. Stuart, do as I say. Go and call the police immediately.”
“Well, it looks like I’m hooked, and I’ll have to.”
“That’s a good boy. In the meantime, I’ll go up to my room and lie down. It’s expected of widows to behave properly in these matters, and I don’t want to create a bad impression — especially for the police.”
She went upstairs, carrying her beach bag. In her room she hung the bag on a hook far back in her closet, then kicked off her shoes and lay down on the bed. She was inwardly far too excited to continue lying there, however, and after a while she got up and sat in a chair by a window.
She wished that the window overlooked the terrace so that she could watch what would go on down there; but the terrace was on the other side of the house. It would be necessary, she thought to dispose of the strip of rawhide, but there would be plenty of time for that later. Meanwhile it would be safe enough where it was, in the beach bag, for there was no reason in the world why anyone should look into it, or even think of looking.
Now that it was so nearly finished, she felt a great urgency to have it finished altogether. She sat quietly, listening for sounds, but she could hear nothing in the big house and see nothing pertinent from the window. After a long time she began to suspect that Stuart had not even called the police as he was instructed to do. She was almost ready to go downstairs and see for herself if he was still there or had sneaked away like a coward, when there was suddenly, without the prelude of any other sound, a brisk rapping on her door and a voice that sounded somehow official. “Mrs. Bauer. Are you there?”
“Yes,” she said. “Who is it, please?”
“Lieutenant Peavy. Police. I’d like to talk with you if you feel up to it.”
“Of course. Just a moment.”
She stood up and put on her shoes and opened the door.
“I’ve been lying down,” she said. “I understand. Are you sure you’re ready to talk?”
“Quite ready.”
“Will you come downstairs, or would you prefer to talk here?”
“Here, if you don’t mind. Please come in.”
She crossed to the bed and sat on the edge of it, while he pulled the chair around from the window and sat facing her. As a policeman, she thought, he looked remarkably inoffensive. To be perfectly candid, from her particular point of view, he looked relatively safe if not inept. He was slight of build, with limp brown hair brushed over from the side, and his tired suit hung loosely on his body. He held his hands clasped between his knees, as if he were embarrassed and uncertain of himself.