When the boy stopped, Marshall said, “Keep going, Bud. You aren’t finished.”
“Oh. I thought you just wanted to know about us seeing him cut the screen. Mom held my arm and told me to be quiet. Dad closed the window from inside, and a couple of minutes later we heard the back door open and close. Mom pulled me along behind the bushes until you could see the place in the wall where you go down to the beach. Dad was just going down the steps. We moved closer to the wall until we could see over it. Dad was walking along the beach behind the Pierce house and the Derring house. He kept going to where the road comes down to the water. past the country-club grounds and cut across that. I guess he was walking over to the clubhouse. Across country like that instead of taking the streets it’s only about three blocks.”
There was the sound of feet tripping lightly down the stairs. Marshall said quickly, “I guess that’s enough, Bud.”
Betty entered the room with a smile on her face. With her strawberry-blond hair drawn into an upsweep, she was beautiful in a white, form-fitting dress. Marshall rose from his chair.
“Hello, Kirk,” she said. “Time for your bath, Bud. When you’re in your pajamas, give a yell and I’ll come kiss you good night.”
“Okay,” Bud said, getting up from the sofa. “Good night, Mr. Marshall.”
“ ‘Night, Bud.”
When the boy had gone upstairs, Betty came over, placed her hands on Marshall’s shoulders and offered her lips for a kiss. He touched them very gently with his own.
“Your passion overwhelms me,” she said, cocking an eyebrow at him. “After all this time I thought I’d have to fight you off.”
He smiled a trifle weakly. “Maybe I’m tireder from the trip than I thought.”
“Would a drink perk you up?”
“All right,” he agreed, more to get her out of the room for a minute so that he could think than because he was thirsty.
She moved on through the dining room toward the kitchen. Marshall sank heavily back into his chair.
What Bud had told him changed the whole picture of what had happened that night. Betty had known what Bruce planned. That explained her puzzling transfer of Bud back to his own bedroom, when she had been having him sleep in her room ever since the attack on Mrs. Ferris. She had never for a moment thought it was the cat burglar opening her bedroom door. She had known it was Bruce, and had been calmly waiting for him in the dark with a gun in her hand.
It still wasn’t murder. He knew no jury in the country would convict her, even if the whole truth came out, for it was patently a case of self-defense. But her cold-blooded handling of the situation appalled him. Any normal woman would simply have asked for police protection.
He understood what her thoughts must have been. By then she had realized that her father’s drowning had been no accident and that she was marked as the killer’s next victim. She must have hated Bruce to the core of her soul.
Perhaps there was some moral justification in what she had done. But he knew beyond any doubt that he didn’t want a woman who took such matters into her own hands.
All at once he felt a sense of relief. The shackles which had kept him bound to a memory for so many years dissolved.
There was no point in letting her know he was aware of her cold-blooded act, he decided. The burden of her own guilt was enough for her to bear. For he was sure she felt the burden. Now he understood her strange insistence on being tried. Guilt must have been the deciding factor in her decision to stand trial instead of telling the partial truth. Concern over her son’s future had been only part of it. She must have felt the need to stand trial because she knew in her heart that she had deliberately killed her husband, even though the killing could be legally justified.
Betty came back into the room with a tray containing a highball, a bottle of beer and an empty glass. She set it on the coffee table before the sofa.
“Come on over here,” she invited.
Moving over to the sofa next to her, he poured beer, waited for the foam to settle and liften his glass. He might as well get it over with fast and clean, he thought.
“I can’t think of any appropriate toast,” he said. “Unless you want to make it to friendship. This’ll probably be our last drink together in such cozy surroundings.”
She looked at him strangely. “What do you mean?”
“Lydia and I are getting married.”
Momentarily her face registered shock, but she recovered immediately and assumed a bright smile. Her eyes failed to join her lips in the smile. They suddenly grew opaque and expressionless.
“Congratulations,” she said, touching her glass to his. “When?”
“We haven’t set a date. I suppose she’ll want enough time to get in a few bridal showers. Probably in the fall.”
“Im sure you’ll be very happy.” She drained half her drink, a few moments later drained the other half.
He left fifteen minutes later. As she walked him to the door, Bud called from the top of the stairs, “Mom! I’m ready.”
“The voice of the master of the house,” she said, offering her hand in a formal handclasp. “Good luck, Kirk.”
“The same to you,” he said.
The door closed gently behind him and he heard the bolt click home.
He was still only nine-fifteen when he parked in front of Lydia’s apartment house. There was light in her front windows.
She answered the door in her quilted housecoat and with a towel wrapped about her head.
“I just stepped out of the shower,” she said, smiling at him. “Come on in.”
As she closed and locked the door behind him, he said abruptly, “How’d you like to get married?”
Her eyes widened. “To you?”
He burst out laughing. “I’m not running a marriage brokerage.”
“I guess it was a silly question,” she said. “I just wasn’t sure I heard right. Do you mind repeating what you said?”
Taking her by the shoulders, he drew her against him. “Will you marry me? I love you. Would you prefer it on my knees?”
“I accept,” she said, throwing her arms about his neck. Never mind your knees. When?”
“I think the bride is supposed to fix the wedding date. That’s up to you.”
“Labor Day,” she said. “Then you’ll be able to remember our anniversary. But let’s start the honeymoon right now.”
Obligingly he scooped her up in his arms and carried her into the bedroom.