One of the half-curtained windows looked out across the sun-filled patio. I saw the young nurse cross to the blue swing, and Sable’s face come up as if from sleep. He disengaged himself from his wife. Her body relaxed into an awkward position. Blue-shadowed by the canvas shade of the swing, her face had the open-eyed blankness of a doll’s.
Sable dragged his shadow across the imitation flagstone. He looked small, oddly diminished, under the sky’s blue height. The impression persisted when he entered the lounge. Age had fallen on him. He needed a haircut, and his tie was pulled to one side. The look he gave me was red-eyed; his voice was cranky.
“What brings you here, anyway?”
“I wanted to see you. I don’t have much time in town.”
“Well. You see me.” He lifted his arms from his sides, and dropped them.
The old ladies, who had greeted him with smiles and nods, reacted like frightened children to his bitterness. One of them hitched her shawl high around her neck and slunk out of the room. The other stretched her hand out toward Sable as if she wanted to comfort him. She remained frozen in that position while she went on watching the ball game. The bearded man watched the corner of the ceiling.
“How is Mrs. Sable?”
“Not well.” He frowned, and drew me out into the corridor. “As a matter of fact, she’s threatened with melancholia. Dr. Trenchard tells me she’s had a similar illness before – before I married her. The shock she suffered two weeks ago stirred up the old trouble. Good Lord, was that only two weeks ago?”
I risked asking: “What sort of background does she have?”
“Alice was a model in Chicago, and she’s been married before. She lost a child, and her first husband treated her badly. I’ve tried to make it up to her. With damn poor success.”
His voice sank toward despair.
“I take it she’s having therapy.”
“Of course. Dr. Trenchard is one of the best psychiatrists on the coast. If she gets any worse, he’s going to try shock treatment.” He leaned on the wall, looking down at nothing in particular. His red eyes seemed to be burning.
“You should go home and get some sleep.”
“I haven’t been sleeping much lately. It’s easy to say, sleep. But you can’t will yourself to sleep. Besides, Alice needs me with her. She’s much calmer when I’m around.” He shook himself, and straightened. “But you didn’t come here to discuss my woes with me.”
“That’s true, I didn’t. I came to thank you for the check, and to ask you a couple of questions.”
“You earned the money. I’ll answer the questions if I can.”
“Dr. Howell has hired me to investigate John Galton’s background. Since you brought me into the case, I’d like to have your go-ahead.”
“Of course. You have it, as far as I’m concerned. I can’t speak for Mrs. Galton.”
“I understand that. Howell tells me she’s sold on the boy. Howell himself is convinced that he’s a phoney.”
“We’ve discussed it. There seems to be some sort of romance between John and Howell’s daughter.”
“Does Howell have any other special motive?”
“For doing what?”
“Investigating John, trying to prevent Mrs. Galton from changing her will.”
Sable looked at me with some of his old sharpness. “That’s a good question. Under the present will, Howell stands to benefit in several ways. He himself is executor, and due to inherit a substantial sum, I really mustn’t say how much. His daughter, Sheila, is in for another substantial sum, very substantial. And after various other bequests have been met, the bulk of the estate goes to various charities, one of which is the Heart Association. Henry Galton died of cardiovascular trouble. Howell is an officer of the Heart Association. All of which makes him a highly interested party.”
“And highly interesting. Has the will been changed yet?”
“I can’t say. I told Mrs. Galton I couldn’t conscientiously draw up a new will for her, under the circumstances. She said she’d get someone else. Whether she has or not, I can’t say.”
“Then you’re not sold on the boy, either.”
“I was. I no longer know what to think. Frankly, I haven’t been giving the matter much thought.” He moved impatiently, and made a misstep to one side, his shoulder thudding against the wall. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll get back to my wife.”
The young nurse let me out.
I looked back through the wire fence. Mrs. Sable remained in the same position on the swing. Her husband joined her in the blue shadow. He raised her inert head and insinuated his shoulder behind it. They sat like a very old couple waiting for the afternoon shadows to lengthen and merge into night.
Chapter 23
THE CAB-DRIVER stopped at the curb opposite the gates of the Galton estate. He hung one arm over the back of the seat and gave me a quizzical look:
“No offense, Mister, but you want the front entrance or the service entrance?”
“The front entrance.”
“Okay. I just didn’t want to make a mistake.”
He let me off under the porte-cochère. I paid him, and told him not to wait. The Negro maid let me into the reception hall, and left me to cool my heels among the ancestors.
I moved over to one of the tall, narrow windows. It looked out across the front lawn, where the late afternoon sunlight lay serenely. I got some sense of the guarded peace that walled estates like this had once provided. In the modern world the walls were more like prison walls, or the wire fence around a nursing-home garden. When it came right down to it, I preferred the service entrance. The people in the kitchen usually had more fun.
Quick footsteps descended the stairs, and Cassie Hildreth came into the room. She had on a skirt and a sweater which emphasized her figure. She looked more feminine in other, subtler, ways. Something had happened to change her style.
She gave me her hand. “It’s good to see you, Mr. Archer. Sit down. Mrs. Galton will be down in a minute.”
“Under her own power?”
“Yes, isn’t it remarkable? She’s becoming much more active than she was. John takes her out for a drive nearly every day.”
“That’s nice of him.”
“He actually seems to enjoy it. They hit it off from the start.”
“He’s the one I really came to see. Is he around?”
“I haven’t seen him since lunch. Probably he’s out in his car somewhere.”
“His car?”
“Aunt Maria bought him a cute little Thunderbird. John’s crazy about it. He’s like a child with a new toy. He told me he’s never had a car of his own before.”
“I guess he has a lot of things he never had before.”
“Yes. I’m so happy for him.”
“You’re a generous woman.”
“Not really. I’ve a lot to be thankful for. Now that John’s come home, I wouldn’t trade my life for any other. It may sound like a strange thing to say, but life is suddenly just as it was in the old days – before the war, before Tony died. Everything seems to have fallen into harmony.”
She sounded as if she had transferred her lifelong crush from Tony to John Galton. A dream possessed her face. I wanted to warn her not to bank too heavily on it. Every thing could fall into chaos again.
Mrs. Galton was fussing on the stairs. Cassie went to the door to meet her. The old lady had on a black tailored suit with something white at her throat. Her hair was marcelled in hard gray corrugations which resembled galvanized iron. She extended her bony hand: