As Conway reached the head of the stairs, he saw Bauer holding the front door open. A girl, carrying a suitcase and an overnight bag, came in. “Thank you,” she said frigidly to the detective. Then she looked up and saw Conway descending the stairs. She put down the bags and smiled up at him. “Hello, Arthur,” she said.
Bauer looked at Conway, and Conway looked from the girl to the detective and back again. He had never seen her before in his life. What kind of trick is this? he wondered.
“Don’t recognize me, do you?” she said. He shook his head, completely bewildered.
“I’m Betty.”
It was a moment before the name registered. “Helen’s sister?” he finally said.
“Half-sister.”
“You didn’t tell me she had a sister,” Bauer said.
“Half-sister,” Betty corrected. “And I must say you haven’t been very polite.”
Conway tried to pull himself out of the stunned inertia produced by the announcement of her identity. “This is Detective Sergeant Bauer,” he said.
She gave Bauer the briefest of looks, and he acknowledged the introduction with an unintelligible mutter.
“Surprised to see me?” she said with another smile at Conway.
“Yes — yes, I am. How did you get here? I wired you only last night.”
“I’d left by then. I heard about it on the radio, and then the Topeka paper called me up, and I thought — well, that I ought to hurry out here in case there was anything I could do. So I caught a plane last night, and just got here.” Conway stared at her stonily. “I must say I expected a more cordial reception than this. Aren’t you even going to ask me to sit down?”
“Yes — of course — please come in.” Conway led the way to the living room, his brain still in turmoil. This didn’t make sense: this girl, who had not seen Helen for over five years, who had not communicated with her in four, suddenly popping up like this. He had to get rid of Bauer, so that he might find out why.
“What I really want to do,” Betty said as she came into the living room, “is to take a bath and get into some other clothes. When you’ve been sitting up all night, you don’t feel very fresh, do you?”
Bauer planted himself between Conway and the girl. “You never told me she had a sister,” he said again.
“Well, I—”
“Half-sister,” Betty repeated. “He probably forgot I existed. I haven’t seen Helen for years, and we never wrote, and in fact we weren’t on very good terms ever since Mama died and left everything to me, because Helen wouldn’t stay home, but went to New York. Not that there was very much.”
Conway looked at her as she spoke. She was certainly a far cry from the girl Helen had contemptuously described as a “cold little fish.” She was not little, and the predominant impression she gave was of warmth and vitality. She was dark, with large brown eyes, a delicately modeled face, and a delectable figure: the complete antithesis of Helen’s flagrantly blonde amplitude. The sparkle of her eyes belied the sobriety and matter-of-factness of her dress and speech.
“Why’d you come out here if you weren’t on very good terms with her?” Bauer asked. “Have you any information you think might help us?”
“Good heavens, no.” She looked at Conway. “I just came out because I thought I might be able to help Arthur through this dreadful tragedy.”
It was plain that Bauer was suspicious of something; it was equally clear that he was not quite sure of what. “Then you two are pretty good friends, eh?”
“No, Sergeant — I—” Conway began.
“I hope we will be,” Betty said. “But I’d never laid eyes on him until I just walked in the door.” Bauer eyed Conway, uncertain of what to believe. “And now, Sergeant, tell me what progress you’ve made on the case.” She’s been seeing too many movies, Conway thought.
The detective glared at her. “No comment,” he said.
“I don’t think I care for your attitude,” Betty said coldly. “I happen to be the second-next-of-kin. You might remember that you are a servant of the people.”
“I’m nobody’s servant,” the detective said truculently. “And let me tell you something else—”
Conway stepped between them, as though to separate two people who were about to come to blows. This is one way to get rid of Bauer, he thought, the worst possible way. “Please,” he said, “there’s no point in being unpleasant. The sergeant has nothing to tell you. Betty, because he’s already told the newspapers everything he knows — everything, that is, which he thinks it advisable, at this time, to make public.” Out of the corner of his eye, Conway could see Bauer beginning to soften. “He’s been very frank with me, but I know there are a lot of things he hasn’t told me, simply because he doesn’t think it good policy to discuss them with anyone. If you’ll read the morning papers there, you’ll know as much as I do, which is just about all anyone does — with the exception of the sergeant.”
“I read the papers coming in from the airport,” she said. “Why do they say it’s a sex maniac?”
She’s going to do it, Conway thought. I don’t know why or when or how, but she’s going to do it. She’s going to hang me.
Bauer answered her without hesitation. “Who else would it be?” he asked.
“That’s a silly kind of reasoning,” Betty said. “There are supposed to be two million people in Los Angeles, and half of them are women, so if there was a sex maniac around, it’s a million to one he wouldn’t pick Helen. Can’t you think of something where the odds wouldn’t be quite so much against you?”
Conway found himself somewhat dizzied by this reasoning, but not Bauer. “Look,” he said. “The odds are ten million to one against your getting struck by lightning, but if you get hit, it don’t matter what the odds are — you’re dead. Right? Right. Well, your sister’s dead.”
“Half-sister,” Betty said. “And that’s just my point. If you find somebody lying down dead after a thunderstorm, you don’t just say they were struck by lightning. Right?” She waited for an answer, but none was forthcoming. “Right,” she affirmed.
Bauer opened his mouth twice, like a seal coming up for air, but if he planned to say anything, he thought better of it. On the third try he said, “I’ve got to go,” and went for his hat. At the door he turned to Betty.
“Where will you be if I want to get hold of your” he asked.
“I suppose what you mean is if you want to communicate with me,” she said. “And I’ll be right here, naturally.”
Conway’s jaw dropped and the detective’s eyes widened. “Here?” he said.
“After all, the reason I came out was to help Arthur through this awful thing,” she said.
“But you can’t stay here with me,” Conway said.
“Well, we can talk about it later. You’ll let me stay long enough to have a bath and change my clothes, won’t you?”
“Yes — I suppose so.”
“Then I’ll do that right now, if the sergeant will excuse me. Would you mind bringing the luggage up, and showing me which room you want me to use?” She started up the stairs, and Conway felt the detective eying him.
“I’ll drop in the next time I’m in the neighborhood,” Bauer said, and there was something in the tone that chilled Conway. He closed the door after the sergeant, and walked slowly up the stairs with Betty’s bags.
He found her already in Helen’s room.
“I’m dying to talk to you,” she said. “And you must want to ask me a lot of things. But do you mind waiting till after I’ve bathed and changed? I’ll feel so much better then.” She looked up from hunting the zipper on the side of her skirt, and gave him what could only be described as a winning smile.
He wanted desperately to talk to her, to find out what her game was. But he didn’t know where to begin; he needed time to think, to plan his strategy. He had never been more unsure of himself. Perhaps this was the breathing space he needed; it would give him time to pull himself together.
“I’ll put some towels in the bathroom,” he said, and went out and closed the door.
Downstairs, he listened to the bedroom door open, the bathroom door close, and the bath being run. Some time later he heard the water running out of the tub, the bathroom door open, and the bedroom door close. And insistently he searched for the reason for her being here. Why had she come? There was, of course, one possible reason which was almost too frightening to contemplate: that Helen had written her recently. What Helen might have said that had roused her suspicions, he could not imagine; Helen certainly had had no inkling of the fate in store for her. But, he thought, that was not essential, because almost anything Helen would have said in a recent letter would be enough to give the lie to the story of their relationship he had already told the police. No matter how little this girl knew, it was too much. The mere fact of her presence had already roused Bauer’s suspicions, however vague. Anything she might inadvertently say could be enough to make those suspicions dangerously concrete. He knew that Bauer would make a point of talking to her, questioning her. And regardless of how stupid or clumsy he might be, it was inevitable that he would learn something.
All this, of course, was assuming that the girl had not purposely come for some sinister reason of her own. But had she some devious scheme in mind which had brought her here so quickly? Blackmail, perhaps? It was more than possible. She had seemingly tried to antagonize Bauer, so her project might not involve the police. Conway began to realize that his plan for the perfect murder was something considerably less than that: it was good chiefly in that it provided him with an alibi; it had served to divert suspicion, at first glance, from himself and point to another, unknown culprit. Already she had managed to point at least a tiny finger of suspicion at him. The chance coincidence, which he had rejected as unworthy of his story, was intruding itself into his life with no regard for its lack of artistic merit.
What would her next move be? He had to talk to her, try to find out what lay behind this hurried trip, but he had not the vaguest notion of where to start. One thing he did know: if he was not able to persuade her to return home immediately, he would have to let her remain in the house; it would be too dangerous to have her on the loose, available at any time to Bauer or, perhaps, some shrewder, more acute questioner. Here he might be able to have some control over her meetings with the police.
“They say planes aren’t dirty, but I must say I feel a lot less soiled than I did.” The voice came from the top of the stairs, and Conway turned and watched her as she descended. She was wearing a light, printed silk dress which caressed an enchanting figure, and her hair, freed now of a hat, made a luscious frame for the piquant face. The picture held him for only a moment; it was crowded out almost instantly by the fears and desperate suspicions she aroused in him, but because he still did not know what he was going to say, nor even how to begin, he said nothing. Betty apparently found this a normal reaction: there was no trace of embarrassment or coquettishness as she walked into the room.
“That detective was something to get rid of, wasn’t he?” she said.
“Why were you so anxious to get rid of him?”
“I wanted to talk to you, naturally — and I thought maybe you’d be a little curious about my turning up this way.”
She’s not going to hold back, Conway thought. She’s going to come out with it. At least I’ll know where I stand. “I’m more than a little curious,” he said.
“For one thing, I did want to see if I could be of any help to you. You wouldn’t know about this, but I’ve had sort of a schoolgirl crush on you ever since Helen sent on your picture and told us about you, when you got married. I’d always wanted to meet you, but then, of course, when Mama died, and Helen got so furious, there didn’t seem to be much chance of that. So this is the first chance I’ve had to meet my only living relative.”
The combination of naiveté and utter poise was engaging, her sincerity was disarming, and Conway decided that she was going to be more devious than he had expected. “There couldn’t have been another reason, could there?” he asked.
“Well, yes, in a way. You see, I’ll probably be getting married one of these days, and if I marry in Topeka I probably wouldn’t ever go anyplace much. I have this little income from Mama’s house, and I’ve always wanted to see California, and this seemed like a good time to do it. Can you fix it so I can go through one of the studios?”
“No,” Conway said, “I’ve never been in one myself.”
“Really? That’s too bad. Well, maybe I’ll meet someone while I’m here who could arrange it.”
“Just how long are you planning to stay?”
“I don’t know exactly. It all depends.”
“On what, if I’m not too inquisitive?”
“Oh, lots of things. My financial status, and what turns up out here, and how much I like California, and — it gets awfully hot in the summer in Topeka, you know.”
“And awfully cold in the winter.”
“Yes.” Then she realized his implication. “But I wouldn’t impose on you indefinitely — I’d find an apartment.”
“I see. No other reasons for the trip?”
“No,” she said, a little puzzled at his tone. “That’s all.”
“A desire to pay your respects to Helen’s memory wasn’t one of them, obviously.” He realized how stuffy he sounded before he even finished the sentence.
“You and I don’t have to be hypocritical about that, do we?” What does she know? he asked himself. What does she mean, you and I?
“When was the last time you heard from Helen?” he said.
“Right after Mama died — when she heard about the will. She was going to try to break it, but a Topeka lawyer advised her against it, and then she wrote me, and called me a lot of names, and said she never wanted to hear from me again. So — she didn’t.”
“She never wrote you after we moved out here?”
“I didn’t even know you had.”
“Then how did you know where we lived? You seem to have headed for this house like a homing pigeon.”
“Well, really,” she said with some exasperation, “with your name and picture and address in every paper in town, that wasn’t awfully difficult.”
“Oh.” He felt a little foolish at his inept effort to trap her. “Just what kind of help did you expect to be to me?”
“Why, cook and keep house, and keep people from bothering you. Being a writer, I’m sure you wouldn’t be very good at those things yourself. Of course, that’s one of the things about you that always appealed to me — being a writer, I mean. There’s something sort of glamorous about a writer.”
A sardonic glint came into his eyes. “Your sister didn’t think—” He stopped himself just in time. “Helen didn’t tell me you were like this,” he substituted rather lamely.
That’s her plan, he thought. To trap him in the course of casual conversation; to lead him on until he revealed his true feeling about Helen. He believed now that Helen had not written her, but he knew also that she had some suspicion which she was determined to confirm. She was beguiling, easy to talk to, and it was inevitable that if he did talk to her, he would betray himself: he would make that one slip which would be the first, and fatal, flaw in his armor. He had to get her out of the house: whatever Bauer might learn from her was less dangerous than what she could learn from him.
“You can’t stay here,” he said abruptly.
“What?” She was taken aback at the sudden harshness in his voice. “What is it? You act as if you were afraid of me.”
He laughed, as convincingly as he could, and realized he had been doing a very bad job of acting. “Why should I be afraid of you?”
“Well, you needn’t be. I noticed there’s a lock on my door, and I suppose there’s one on yours.”
So she thinks I can’t resist her charms, Conway reflected. Isn’t sex wonderful? He was quite willing to disguise himself in wolf’s clothing if it would help get rid of her. But he needed a chance to plan a new campaign.
“I haven’t had any lunch,” he said. “Maybe that’s why I’m a little edgy. How about you?”
“I thought that’s what was wrong with you,” she said. “But you’ve been cross-questioning me so much I haven’t had a chance to suggest it. I’ll get it right away. You see, I told you I could be a help.” She headed for the kitchen, and Conway followed. “Go away,” she said. “This is my department.” Conway retired to the living room to consider his problem. He had got nowhere when she announced, in an amazingly short time, that lunch was ready.
The meal was good, but the luncheon could hardly have been called a success. It was eaten in almost complete silence: Conway volunteered no conversation, fearing that he might make some slip, and warily responded to her efforts with no more than a “Yes” or “No.” By the time they finished, she appeared to have given up. But she made one final effort.
“This is a depressing room,” she said, indicating the dining room which Conway himself had always disliked. “Don’t you ever eat out there?” She pointed to the small square of brick outside the French windows, which, in accordance with California custom, was dignified by the name of “patio.”
“No,” he said.
“Why not?”
“Helen didn’t like to. It was always too hot or too cold.”
“I’d like it,” she said, and began gathering up the dishes.
“It was a very good lunch, and you’ve proved what a great help you are,” he said. “Now I’ll take care of these, while you go up and get ready to start looking for a place to live.”
“You are in a hurry to get me out, aren’t you?”
“Sorry if I seem rude.”
“Well, you do, and you needn’t be. I’ll find a place this afternoon. But I finish what I start, and I’m going to finish this lunch — which means washing the dishes. Go away.”
Conway felt childishly helpless. How do you stop an attractive young woman who is determined to wash dishes for you? He did not know how he could be any more rude than he had already been, and he certainly could not use force. He could help her, and thereby speed the operation, but that meant being with her: the one thing he wanted to avoid.
“I’ll go up to my room,” he said. “I’ll see if there’s anything advertised in the papers.”
He marked a few listings which he thought might be possibilities, and then sat down at the typewriter so that he might give the appearance of working. But it was over an hour before she tapped on the door.
“I didn’t sleep a wink on the plane, and it’s suddenly hit me,” she said. “I’m so sleepy I could die. I’ll just take a little catnap and then I’ll be fine, and I can get going.” Conway started to remonstrate, but the door closed, and a moment later he heard the door of Helen’s room being shut.
At least she had agreed to leave, he thought. She was in no hurry about it, and he might have to be firm, or rude again, but he was certain he could have her out of the house by tomorrow. That was not the entire solution to the problem, but it was something. It was so much, in fact, that he was even able to start working on a story idea which had come to him the night before.
When the doorbell rang, he looked at his watch and was astonished to discover that it was almost five o’clock. His surprise was succeeded by anger that he had allowed Betty to sleep away the afternoon, and he rapped sharply on her door before going downstairs. He was not unprepared to find that his caller was Sergeant Bauer.
“I was right near here, so I thought I’d drop in and see if you could save me some trouble on something,” the detective said.
“Anything I can.”
“You wouldn’t happen to have any beer on ice, would you?”
“Sure thing. Be with you in a minute.” But the sergeant followed him into the kitchen.
“Has she gone?” he asked in a stage whisper.
“Not yet. She’s been asleep.”
“What!”
“She said she was passing out for lack of sleep, and wanted to take a nap before she went out looking for a place to move. I got busy and didn’t realize how late it was.”
Conway handed him a glass of beer, and the detective took a long drink. “This don’t look good, you know — you and a young girl being alone here in this house.”
“You’re telling me,” Conway said. “I told her she had to find someplace else to stay, and she finally agreed to. Now she’s wasted the afternoon. If you can do anything to hurry her, I’ll be very grateful.”
“Just leave it to me,” Bauer said. “Certainly seems funny, her coming here at all.”
“If I had my car, I’d pile her and her luggage into it, and find a place for her in a hurry,” Conway said. “Have you any idea when I’ll get it back?”
“Couple of days, prob’ly. And they ought to release the body tomorrow. Who you going to have?”
“Have?”
“Mortician.” Conway stared blankly. “For the funeral.”
“I–I hadn’t thought.”
“Better call one. They’ll check with the medical examiner, and as soon as he’s finished — well, they’ll handle everything.”
“Oh.”
The sergeant’s manner took on an air of diffidence which Conway had never observed before. “Look,” he said, “I don’t want to be nosy, but — ah — how you fixed for money?”
A perfect reading, Conway thought: impossible to tell whether he’s prepared to lend me money, or wants to borrow some. “I’m not rolling,” he said. “I can’t do anything elaborate, but I think I can manage to do it respectably.”
“Course you could go to Woodlawn Haven,” Bauer said. “But they don’t need the publicity so much. You’ll get a better break from one of the smaller places that can really use the advertising.” Conway could only look at him. “But not too small. You’ll be surprised, I’ll bet, how big a turn-out you’ll get.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Conway said. Which was true. With all his meticulous planning, he had given no thought to the necessity for what is known as a Christian burial. Nor to the sideshow that is apt to accompany the burial of a spectacular murder victim. “I’d like as little publicity as possible,” he said.
“Oh, sure,” said the detective, thoroughly unconvinced. “Try the Walbridge Mortuary. Mention my name. Not that I get a cut,” he added hastily. “But they’ll play ball with you, and the Department plays ball with them. They ought to do it for the price of the casket. And they’ll put on a service no woman could ask for more. They certainly did all right for Layzelle Llewellyn.”
“Who?” Conway asked.
“The White Rose. You know, I told you.”
“Oh, yes. You said I might be able to save you some trouble,” Conway said, hoping he was not changing the subject too abruptly.
“Yeah. Larkin and I’ve been checking that list of your friends this afternoon.”
“And—?”
“I was right, like I knew I’d be. Nothing. Not a thing. What a waste of manpower.”
“Too bad. But, as you say, you knew nothing would come of it.”
“Yeah. They’re all just terribly shocked, and wish they could do something, and are we going to find the killer? And I have to stand there and lie in their teeth, and then when nothing happens they’ll remember me and not realize I’m just covering up for the Department, so they’ll think I’m the schnook. And that’s one thing I can’t stand.” He stared moodily at the beer.
“I don’t see how anybody could think that of you.”
“A lot of people ain’t good judges of character.” He put down his empty glass, and Conway proved himself at least a good enough judge of character to get another bottle from the icebox. The detective brightened.
“Well, as long as I started checking these people, I might as well finish,” Bauer said as he opened the bottle. “That Taylor that was crossed out — know where he worked or anything?”
Conway took a sip from his glass. He would have liked to drink a toast to Sergeant Bauer and his search for Mr. Taylor. A long chase and a merry one, he thought; it’ll keep you out of mischief.
“I haven’t any idea,” he said with complete truthfulness. “I think he was a salesman of some sort, but I don’t know what he sold, and I haven’t the vaguest notion of where he worked.” He led the way into the living room.
“Oh. Well, just thought you might save me a little time. Don’t know anything else about him, eh?”
“Not a thing. He was a little taller than me, black hair, dark. Do you think he may know something?”
“Nah. It’s just that I got to go through the motions. Say, is that dame ever coming down?”
“I heard her walking around — she ought to be down any minute. Did you want to see her?”
“Sure I want to see her.”
Conway wondered whether the sergeant merely wanted to prove that he could hasten Betty’s departure, or whether he had other reasons for wishing to talk to her. Whichever it was, Conway knew there was no chance of balking the detective, once he had made up his mind. He went to the foot of the stairs.
“Betty,” he called.
“Be down in a minute.”
“I got to get going,” Bauer said.
“I don’t know what can be taking her so long,” Conway said. “But you know women.”
“Yeah,” said Bauer. “And that reminds me. I had lunch with Greta and showed her those beat-up gloves. And you know what she said? She said, ‘Good gosh, if a woman was lucky enough to lose one of those, why would she want it back? If she lost one, she could throw the other one away with a clear conscience.’ Makes sense. And that’s a woman’s way of figuring. Gotta take that into account.”
He’s not stupid enough on his own, Conway thought; he has to call on Greta for assistance. “All women aren’t alike, you know, Sergeant. Maybe Greta has an old world point of view that—”
“Old world?” the sergeant interrupted. “You mean she’s a foreigner?” A belligerent note came into his voice. “She was born in Elyria, Ohio.”
“I’m sorry, I just thought, from her name—”
“Her name’s Gertrude,” the sergeant said with finality.
“Well, anyway, there’s no accounting for the way women think. All I know is that my wife was very annoyed at losing the glove, and asked me to go back and look for it. Maybe she wanted to use them for working in the garden.”
“Helen? Working in the garden?” Betty smiled incredulously as she came into the room. “She certainly must have changed.”
Conway stood in impotent rage as the detective wandered to a window from which the garden was fully visible. It was quite evident that it had felt the ministrations of no loving hands, gloved or ungloved, for a long time.
“She do much gardening?” Bauer asked.
“No.” Conway searched for an explanation which the girl would be unable to contradict. “She was always talking about getting at the garden, but she never did anything about it. It was sort of a joke between us.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Don’t get what?”
“What the joke was about her not doing any gardening.”
“It wasn’t funny. It was just sort of a private joke between us — the way you and Greta probably have private jokes.” Is he ribbing me? Conway wondered.
But the sergeant’s face was guileless. “We don’t have any jokes, Greta and me,” he said. “She hasn’t got a very good sense of humor.” Praise from Caesar, Conway thought.
“Do you mind telling me what this is all about?” Betty asked.
“Nothing,” Conway said shortly. “Sergeant, you were going to—”
But Bauer had taken the gloves from his pocket. “It don’t make sense to me that anybody would care if they did lose one of these gloves,” he said. “Any woman would be glad to get rid of them.”
Conway caught the quick glance Betty flashed at him. “Any woman except Helen,” she said as she examined the gloves. “She could never bear to lose anything — and she never threw anything away.”
Startled at this manifest untruth, Conway looked at her, but she was bending over to get a cigarette from the box on the table. He was utterly bewildered. A moment earlier she had intimated, for Bauer’s benefit, that he was lying; now she had lied, to cover up for him.
“No cigarettes,” she announced. “I’ll really have to get to work on this house. I spent an hour after lunch cleaning the kitchen, and I didn’t even make an impression.” Conway held out a pack of cigarettes, and she took one without meeting his eyes.
“I wanted to talk to you about that,” Bauer said. “Mr. Conway told me you weren’t going to stay here.”
“I told Mr. Conway,” she said frigidly, “that I would leave as soon as I could find a suitable place to stay. I intended to start looking this afternoon, but he didn’t wake me, and I overslept.”
“There’s a motel not far from here,” the detective said. “I happened to pass it on my way over and noticed a ‘Vacancy’ sign. I can take you over there now, if you’re ready.”
“I shall look for an apartment tomorrow, but I will not stay in a ratty motel when there is a perfectly good room with a perfectly good bed upstairs.”
This was obviously too much for the sergeant’s tender sensibilities. “How can you sleep in the bed your own murdered sister slept in?”
“Half-sister. And if I were home in Topeka I’d be sleeping in the bed she slept in, because I still use the one we shared when we were kids. I don’t see any reason to be morbid about it.”
“And I don’t see how a girl who looks like you do can be so unconscious. Don’t you know it just ain’t right, your staying here in this house?”
“Where I come from,” she said, “when anyone’s in trouble, or there’s sickness or death in the family, their friends and relatives all pitch in and do what they can to help. Well, I haven’t noticed anyone else trying to help Arthur, and as long as he’s the only relative I’ve got, it seems to me I ought to try to do what I can.”
“But what will people say? How does it look to people?” The sergeant was growing exasperated. “I’ll tell you how it looks — it don’t look decent. Right?” He turned to Conway as he confirmed his own judgment. “Right.”
She looked him up and down coolly, impersonally, and it was a moment before she spoke. “Sergeant Bauer,” she said glacially, “I have looked after my reputation — and my virtue — without the help of the Los Angeles Police Department up to now, and I think I can continue to do so. Right now I’d be much happier without your advice, opinion, or company.”
Conway expected that the detective would explode, but he only stood, dumbly. Betty walked to the door, flung it open, picked up Bauer’s hat, and held it out to him. He walked to her, took the hat without breaking stride, and left. She closed the door firmly behind him.
“People like that do make me angry,” she said in a voice that was remarkably calm.
“Would you mind telling me just why you put on that act?” Conway asked.
“Was it that bad?” She shook her head ruefully. “I guess I’m not a very good actress. Anyway, it was good enough for him — it worked.”
“What was the idea?”
She looked at him in surprise. “I just wanted him to go away — and I thought you did too.”
“I had no particular reason to ‘want him to go away’ — and certainly not in that fashion.”
“My mistake,” she said. “What shall we do tonight?”
“I’d also be interested to know why you said Helen couldn’t bear to lose anything and never threw anything away.”
She looked at him for a moment before replying. “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” she said. Again that dread of hidden danger, the fear of the secret knowledge she possessed, gripped him. “Do you feel like going out, or shall we have dinner here?” she continued.
“You do as you like,” he said. “I’m having dinner here.”
“All right.” His rudeness, he noticed, no longer seemed to have any effect. “I’ll start getting it.”
He debated, and decided against, offering her a drink or having one himself. He was sure that he would not be affected by a cocktail or two, but he preferred to take no chance of having his tongue loosened. Dinner was even more silent than lunch had been.
When they were through, he said, “I’ll do the dishes.”
“You know what I said this noon about finishing what I start,” she said.
“All right. Then if you’ll excuse me, I’m going upstairs and try to do some work.”
“You know, you really ought to get out more,” she said. “I’ll bet you’ve been cooped up in this house for days.”
“May I remind you that my wife has just died, and that I’m not exactly in the mood for the gay spots?”
“I didn’t mean that. As Sergeant Bauer would say, that wouldn’t look good. But you could—”
“ I didn’t say it wouldn’t look good — I said I’m not in the mood for it.”
“Naturally you’re upset because she was murdered. But that doesn’t mean you have to put on this big grief act.”
He stared at her for several moments before he dared speak. “What are you talking about?” he said.
“You were married for four years, weren’t you? Well, after living with her for four years, you certainly couldn’t have liked her. Nobody who’d had four years of Helen could be sorry when it was over, no matter what had to happen to put an end to it.”
There was utter candor in her eyes, and he could not face them. “You — you’re out of your mind,” he said. He fled to his room and locked the door.
What did she know? What did she suspect? What was she plotting? How was she planning to trap him? The questions to which there were no answers went reeling about in his brain. Her seeming honesty and artlessness were so disarming that it was difficult to guard against them. She had to be got out of the house, and quickly; that would help.
But — would it be enough?
He was horrified as he realized the implication of what he was thinking. Was that the only way he could save himself — by killing this girl, too? But he wasn’t a killer, even though he had murdered Helen. He had no qualms about that: it had been his only chance of salvation. Even Betty knew that was justified. Or did she? Had that remark been a trick to decoy him into some damning revelation? She seemed such a completely engaging person — or might have, at another time or place. He couldn’t kill her — but what other way out was there? Except that he couldn’t get away with it: even his perfect murder, so carefully planned, showed signs of coming apart at the seams. And if two sisters, within a week— Not even Bauer would be fooled under those circumstances. But — was there any way?
He heard her come upstairs, and a long time after her door closed, he peered out. No light showed under the door, so he went downstairs and made himself a drink. Then, on second thought, he took ice, soda and the bottle of whisky to his room and locked himself in.