“Nobody leads a double life. One life is all anyone leads, good, bad or indifferent.”
“Well, you never stop thinking, that busy mind of yours.”
“Isn’t it a good thing there’s someone to do some thinking now? You look up Ernestine’s itinerary, and telephone Arthur the very first thing in the morning. Have you got a pencil there?”
“Yes.”
“Write down this name. Solon Schissler. That’s S, o, 1, o, n, Solon. Schissler. S, c, h, i, s, s, 1, e, r. He’s the Swedish Haven undertaker. Have Arthur call him and tell him to be ready for a call from me.”
“Are you going to have the funeral here?”
“Where else? Under the circumstances I doubt very much if Wilma will want him in her family plot, wherever that is. He belongs here, with the Lockwoods. So you tell Arthur to notify Schissler.”
“Will it be a big funeral? A lot of people here?”
“Certainly not. When the New York authorities give their permission I’ll have Pen brought back to Swedish Haven and go direct to the cemetery. Everything will be strictly private.”
“Are you going up to see Wilma now?”
“As soon as I put some clothes on. You’d better take a bromide and get some sleep.”
“All right, dear, I think I will. Goodnight, and I’m terribly sorry. I know you were terribly fond of Pen.”
“Goodnight, Geraldine,” he said. He hung up.
“I was,” he muttered. “I was very fond of him. I don’t think I ever knew that before.”
He had the taxi halt at the 51st Street subway station. Without getting out of the cab, and reading upside down, he could see the front page of the Daily News: 2 DIE IN LOVE NEST. George bought copies of the Times, World, American, News and Mirror. Only the News and the Mirror had the story, and their accounts were virtually identical.
“You know you read them fuckin’ papers, there’s more shooting goes on in them love nests than there is humpin’,” said the driver. “What the hell’s a guy want to kill a woman for? The way I look at it, if you catch her humpin’ some other guy, all right give her a punch in the nose for luck. But what the hell’s use of taking a chance of frying for it? A cunt’s a cunt, and there’s two million of them right here in this city alone. Everybody wouldn’t agree with me, but that’s the way I feel about it. And I like it, I get plenty. Me and the wife are separated on account of that very reason. So I guess she’s gettin’ hers. But would I shoot her for that? I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. Or you take now this poor son of a bitch Gray, Judd Gray. She talks him into hittin’ Snyder over the head with a sashweight. And now the two of them hate one another. So they’ll both fry. You drive one of these hacks around New York City on the night side, that’s an education in itself. Women! I tell you, Mister. That’ll be forty-five cents.”
“Very instructive,” said George.
“I’ll say,” said the man.
At least the hackie had been as informative as the newspapers, which contained little that George did not already know. The skimpy accounts, hurriedly written, revealed that neighbors had heard the four shots, the three which Pen fired into Marian’s negligee-clad body and the single shot he fired into his own temple. The shooting had occurred shortly after ten P.M. Neighbors described the Strademyer woman as an attractive person who dressed conservatively and played classical music on the piano. Several times there had been complaints to the superintendent about all-night parties, but these had not been frequent. She was believed to have been a divorcée. Penrose Lockwood, Social Registerite, millionaire partner in a private investment firm, member of fashionable clubs, was a graduate of tony St. Bartholomew’s School and Princeton University. He had been married for twenty-three years to the former Miss Wilma Rainsler, daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. J. Killyan Rainsler, who were members of old Knickerbocker families. There were no children.
The light was on in the vestibule of Pen’s house. George rang the doorbell and was admitted by Norman Bunn, who had been the Penrose Lockwoods’ butler through most of their married life. Norman had grown stout and red-nosed in their service and his eyes were now even more watery than usual. He had probably been interrupted earlier in the midst of a quiet session with a bottle of Pen’s port. “Good evening, sir,” he said. “May I say, sir, it’s difficult to find words.”
“Yes, thank you, Norman,” said George. “Will you get rid of these for me, please? I bought them on the way up. They don’t tell us very much.”
“I’ve already seen the article in the News, sir. The policeman on the beat gave me a copy.”
“Now, what about Mrs. Lockwood? How is she bearing up?”
“I’d say she was bearing up well, sir. She has a friend with her. Mrs. James. Mrs. Sherwood James, married to a cousin of Mrs. Lockwood’s. She only lives around the corner, sir. She’s been with Mrs. Lockwood over an hour, so she’s had someone here most of the time.”
“Anyone else?”
“Not now, sir. Mr. Hyme was here, briefly, but he didn’t stop very long. The telephone has been very busy, as might be expected. And I had to ask my policeman friend for help in keeping out the press. One particularly obnoxious fellow represented himself as the assistant to the district attorney, but something told me not to let him in. And I didn’t. A red-headed Irishman. The police knew him. Then there was a mousy young woman tried to pass herself off as a trained nurse, but we hadn’t sent for a trained nurse. She was of the press, too. Her name is signed to the article in the News. Gladys Roberts.”
“That’s using your head, Norman,” said George.
They climbed a short flight of stairs to the library. Wilma rose to greet him, and they embraced silently. He held her for a moment, and Dorothy James left them, saying she would be in the next room.
“I’m so glad you weren’t far away,” said Wilma. “I hated to disturb Geraldine, but you were the first person I wanted to turn to. Did you know anything about this, George?”
“No, it wasn’t the kind of thing Pen would have confided in anyone, not even me.”
“It apparently had been going on for quite some time,” she said. She hesitated. “I knew about it.”
“Oh, you did?”
“Oh, you mustn’t blame me, George. I was sure it would pass. Things hadn’t been going very well between us. Even the best of marriages get a little rusty, and we were at the age. I’ll be truthful. I took a lover. If Pen could have a mistress, I could have someone too. We could both look the other way until you might say we came to our senses. But Pen became too deeply involved, and I suppose this woman wasn’t going to miss this opportunity. Pen asked me for a divorce.”
“He did?”
“I refused. Suddenly I was terrified. I’m not young, but I think I still have twenty-five or thirty years head of me, and the thought of living it out alone just terrified me. There were all sorts of reasons why I couldn’t marry my lover. First of all, he was too much younger than I. He could be my son, as far as age is concerned, and it never would have worked out for other reasons, too. Pen and I could have continued the arrangement, but he wanted too much. Or she wanted too much, which amounted to the same thing. Now, thanks to her, nobody has anything. Nothing but the kind of mess you read about in the tabloids.”