She had washed her face and left it naked of make-up. Her hair was wet at the temples.
“Practically everything,” I said. “Almost everyone. It’s a little habit I picked up from my clients by osmosis.”
“Not from me. I’ve never learned the habit of distrust.”
“Then it’s time you did. You’ve been deliberately cutting yourself off from the facts of life, and death, while all hell has been breaking loose around you.”
“At least you believe I’m innocent.”
She came all the way into the room and sat in the chair I’d vacated, turning it sideways and resting her head on her hand. She had drenched herself with cologne. I stood over her with the distinct feeling that she had come to place herself in my power or under my protection.
“Innocence is a positive thing, Mrs. Blackwell. It doesn’t consist in holding back information out of a misplaced sense of loyalty. Or shutting your eyes while people die–”
“Don’t lecture me.” She moved her head sideways as though I’d pushed her. “What kind of woman do you think I am? I’ve asked you that before.”
“I think we’re both in the process of finding out.”
“I already know, and I’ll tell you. I’m an unlucky woman. I’ve known it for many years, since the man I loved told me he was diabetic and couldn’t or shouldn’t have children. When he died it confirmed my unluck. I made up my mind never to marry anyone or love anyone again. I refused to expose myself to suffering. I’d had it.
“I moved to Santa Barbara and went on schedule. My schedule was chock full of all the activities a widowed woman is supposed to fill up her time with – garden tours and bridge and adult education classes in mosaic work. I got myself to the point where I was reasonably content and hideously bored. I forgot about my basic unluck, and that was my mistake.
“Mark came to me late last summer and told me that he needed me. He was in trouble. My heart, or whatever, went out to him. I allowed myself to feel needed once again. I’d always been fond of Mark and his blundering boyish ways. That may sound like a queer description of him, but it’s the Mark I know, the only one I’ve known. At any rate I married him and here I am.”
She turned her head up to meet my eyes. The tendons in her neck were like wires in a taut cable. An obscure feeling for her moved me. If it was pity, it changed to something better. I wanted to touch her face. But there were still too many things unsaid.
“If you’ve been unlucky,” she said, “you become unwilling to move for fear the whole house will come tumbling down.”
“It’s lying in pieces around you now, Mrs. Blackwell.”
“I hardly need you to tell me that.”
“Was Mark in trouble with a girl last summer?”
“Yes. He picked her up at Tahoe and got her pregnant. She was plaguing him for money, naturally. He didn’t care about the money, but he was afraid she’d press for something more drastic. Marriage, perhaps, or a lawsuit that would ruin him in the public eye. What people think is very important to Mark. I suppose he thought that marriage to me would protect him and tend to silence the girl.” Stubbornly, she refrained from naming her.
“Did he have the gall to spell this out to you?”
“Not in so many words. His motives are usually quite transparent. He gives himself away, especially when he’s afraid. He was terribly afraid when he came to my house in Santa Barbara. The girl, or one of her friends, had threatened him with criminal charges. Apparently he’d driven her across the state line.”
“Did you know the girl was Dolly Stone?”
“No.” The word came out with retching force. “I’d never have married Mark–”
“Why did you marry him?”
“I was willing to feel needed, as I said. He certainly needed me, and so did Harriet. I thought a marriage that started badly couldn’t fail to improve. And Mark was so desperately afraid, and guilty. He believed he was on the moral skids, that he might end by molesting little children on the streets. He said I was the only one who could save him, and I believed him.”
“You didn’t save him from murdering Dolly. I think you know that by now.”
“I’ve been afraid of it.”
“How long have you suspected?”
“Just tonight, when we were talking about his topcoat, and I got sick. I’m not feeling very well now.”
A greenish pallor had invaded her face, as though the light had changed. Without thinking about it, I touched her temple where the hair was wet. She leaned her head against my hand.
“I’m sorry you’re not feeling well,” I said. “You realize we have to go on to the end.”
“I suppose we do. I lied to you about the topcoat, of course. He bought it when we were on our honeymoon – we ran into some cold weather in Toronto. Mark said it would come in handy when we went up to Tahoe in the spring. I suppose Ralph Simpson found it there, and brought it to Mark for an accounting. Mark took the icepick the Stones had given us–” Her voice broke. “These things are all mixed up with our marriage,” she said. “You’d think he was trying to make a Black Mass of our wedding ceremony.”
She shuddered. I found myself crouching with my arms around her, her tears wetting my collar. After a while the tears stopped coming. Later still she drew away from me.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to let my emotions go at your expense.”
I touched the tragic hollow in her cheek. She turned away from my hand.
“Please. Thank you, but also please. I have to think of just one thing, and that’s my duty to Mark.”
“Isn’t that pretty well washed out?”
She raised her eyes. “You’ve never been married, have you?”
“I have been.”
“Well, you’ve never been a woman. I have to follow through on this marriage, no matter what Mark has done to it. For my sake as well as his.” She hesitated. “Surely I won’t have to stand up in court and testify about these things – the icepick, and the coat, and Dolly?”
“A wife can’t be forced to testify against her husband. You probably know that from your social-working days.”
“Yes. I’m not thinking too well. I’m still in shock, I guess. I feel as though I’d been stripped naked and was about to be driven through the streets.”
“There will be bad publicity. It’s one reason I had to get the facts from you tonight. I’d like to protect you as much as possible.”
“You’re a thoughtful man, Mr. Archer. But what can you do?”
“I can do your talking to the police for you, up to a point.”
Her mind caught on the word police. “Did I understand from your telephone conversation just now that you’re asking the Tahoe police to arrest Mark?”
“I asked a friend in Reno, a detective I’ve been using, to find out if your husband is up there. He’s going to call me back.”
“Then what?”
“Your husband will be arrested, if he’s there. He may not be within five thousand miles of Tahoe.”
“I’m sure he is. He was so concerned about Harriet.”
“Or about his own skin.”
She looked at me with sharp dislike.
“You might as well face this, too,” I said. “There’s a very good chance that your husband left here this morning with no intention of ever coming back. What time did he leave, by the way?”
“Early, very early. I wasn’t up. He left me a note.”
“Do you still have the note?”
She opened the top drawer of her desk and handed me a folded piece of stationery. The writing was a hasty scratching which I could hardly decipher:
Isobel, I’m off to Tahoe. It is too grinding to sit and wait for news of Harriet. I must do something, anything. It’s best you stay here at home. I’ll see you when this is over. Please think of me with affection, as I do you.