Charley was silent.
"And your father. What would have been his reaction to the discovery that his own son had made a fool of him before the world? Had you thought that through?"
Charley still said nothing. He looked down at the red backs of his hands, which were clutching his knees.
"Isn't is possible," said Homer, "that you feared your father's anger because you thought he might cut you out of his will? You hated him anyway. Isn't it possible that you decided there was only one thing to do, to kill him? You arranged a rendezvous with him, again by letter, posing as a literary agent or a collector, or something. You also made arrangements to be sure that your brother would have no alibi for the time of the rendezvous. Then you killed your father..."
"What arrangements?" said Charley. "How could I know Philip was going to leave the Rod and Gun Club and go out for a walk?"
"We don't have the whole story on that yet," said Homer. "But his slip with the cannon firing that morning was just the break you needed, wasn't it? You counted on the double confession you assumed he would make, on his opportunity to commit the crime and on his unlucky mistake of the morning to so confuse the police that they wouldn't dare to arrest either of you, afraid of condemning an innocent party—the very same ruse you had practiced throughout your life to escape punishment at the hands of your parents. Your Sam Prescott outfit and your false 'confession' were all part of the trick. Isn't that so, Charley?"
"No, no," said Charley, "that's not so. That just isn't true. It is true that I was unhappy about the letters when my father insisted on going ahead with them. But I didn't think any reputable publisher would take them seriously. Then, I thought, he would drop the whole thing."
Homer made a church of his fingers, and opened and closed the front door that was his large thumbs. He shifted his ground. "I didn't know your sister Edith was a horsewoman, Charley," he said. "She denied it when we asked her, way back in April."
Charley was startled. "Why, yes. Yes, she is. It's one of the few things she's any good at."
"She rides your horse, Dolly?"
"Sure. It's the only one we've got. She likes to go out mostly at night. It's kind of hard on Dolly, but, heck, it's one of the few pleasures the poor girl has. Say, look, you don't think Edith..."
"No, as a matter of fact, we don't," said Homer. He clap shut his church doors like the snapping of a trap.
"I mean, she's just not strong-minded enough..." Charley stopped abruptly, and looked at Jimmy Flower. "Are you going to arrest me now?"
Jimmy looked at Homer. Homer's little eyes blinked. He rubbed his hair up the wrong way on the back of his head and leaned back in his chair. "No, Charley, you can go on home."
The door closed behind Charley. "What do you think?" said Jimmy Flower.
"Well, with Teddy still missing, what can we do? Besides, it doesn't really hold water yet." Homer looked gloomy. "Do you suppose Charley and Teddy were really in it together, and afterwards Charley murdered Teddy to shut him up?"
"In that case," said Jimmy, "where's the corpus delicti?"
"That's just it. Where is Teddy?"
"Well, I'll tell you what I think, Teddy or no Teddy," said Chief Flower. "I'm sick and tired of us being so clever. Here was somebody wearing Charley's own bunny-suit, seen practically at the moment of firing the fatal shot. Charley had the opportunity, he had the motive, stronger than ever now, with these letters to hush up, and he was witnessed by a real live witness. Why do we have to think up all these ifs, ands and buts? I'll tell you something else—all it would take to convince me is one more scrap of evidence against Charley—just one more little scrap."
*41*
What you seek in vain for, half your life, one day you come full upon, all the family at dinner. —Henry Thoreau
Tom and John were helping Gwen load her white elephants into the pickup. John had worried circles under his eyes. One of the white elephants was a huge mahogany-veneer loudspeaker cabinet, and John wanted it desperately. He sat beside it in the truck and followed it possessively into the vestry of the church, where Gwen was setting up her table. She had to shoo him out. "No customers till the bazaar opens at ten o'clock," she said.
"It seems awfully stupid to me," said Tom, "to haul this thing all the way to church and then all the way back again." But Gwen, who had a stern New England conscience, didn't think it was moral to sell her elephants ahead of time.
"Please, Mom, you won't sell it to anyone else, will you?"
"Whoever gets here first," said Gwen piously. "It wouldn't be right to hold anything for my own family."
So John hung on to the doorhandle outside the entry, scorning the pony rides that had started early. Mary stood beside him, and when the chairwoman of the bazaar opened the door, Mary managed to block a large crowd of greedy-looking children and let John squeeze in first. He streaked for his mother's table.
"Well, hello there, John. Anything I can do for you today?"
"H-has anybody...?"
"No, dear, of course not. It's all yours."
Later in the day Mary walked back from the library to check on her sister. "Aren't you tired?" she said. "Isn't someone going to take over and let you get some lunch?"
"I'm fine," said Gwen. "Grandmaw's going to come over after while and take my place. Do you know, someone actually bought that defunct ant-farm and the inside-out umbrella? They went the first ten minutes. Maybe I underpriced them. I've still got lots of lovely things, though. Don't you want to buy something? We can always take it to the dump on the way home."
Mary looked the collection over, to see if there was anything less useless than the rest. She passed over the salt-and-pepper shakers shaped like drunks leaning on lampposts, the cut-glass pickle dish, the old phonograph records, the cracked dishes, the yellowed dresser scarves, the Donald Duck doorstop, the dented-in ping-pong ball ... and her eyes came to rest on the tricorn hat.
"Where did that come from?" she said. "It wasn't here this morning."
"Mrs. Bewley brought it over. She brought the glove, too, and the half-harmonica and the rusty letter-opener and three pairs of broken sunglasses and this nice trylon-and-perisphere paperweight. She wanted to give me her neckpiece, too, but I made her keep it. I don't think the First Parish should ask for that much of a sacrifice. She helped herself to a few things while she was here, of course, but I was glad to get rid of them anyway."
Mary bought the tricorn hat for a quarter, and looked around for Mrs. Bewley. She found her at the food table, swiping a cooky and being glared at by Mrs. Jellicoe. Mary clung to Mrs. Bewley's bony arm, bought her a dozen brownies and then drew her out into the corridor. But the uproar from the Children's Midway downstairs was so great that she had to lead her out of doors. Freddy was going by on a pony, with Grandmaw walking beside him, holding him on.
"MRS. BEWLEY," shouted Mary, "WHERE DID YOU GET THIS HAT?" She waved it at Mrs. Bewley and pointed at it.
Mrs. Bewley clasped her hands. "THAT'S GOING TO LOOK REAL NICE."
"No, no, Mrs. Bewley. WHERE DID YOU GET IT?"
"WHAT?"
"THE HAT. WHERE—DID—YOU—GET—IT?"
"OH, OH, I SEE. LET ME SEE NOW, I WAS JUST COMING BACK FROM THAT PARADE, YOU KNOW, THAT THEY HAVE? AND I FOUND SOME REAL NICE THINGS. THERE WAS A NICE BEER BOTTLE, THE GREEN KIND, NOT THE BROWN KIND, I DON'T COLLECT THE BROWN KIND, AND A WALLET WITH TEN DOLLARS IN IT THAT BELONGED TO MR. RICHLEY, I COULD TELL BY THE PICTURES OF HIS FAMILY. WANT TO SEE? THE BABY'S ADORABLE."