He recited The Bosun's item, and she said: "So you think I tipped him off? All the trouble that that caused me? Do you know what it almost caused? Him breaking off with her-he began making pa.s.ses at me. Well you must think I'm dumb!"

"O.K., we don't say any more."

"Oh, yes, we do-we say plenty, now that you've brought the subject up, of what I may have done, with good cause, Mr. Lockwood. Where were you? Why didn't you answer your phone?"

"Oh! So you called me!"

"No, Clay, I rang you."

The difference, it seemed, was profound. Calling, wanting to talk, was one thing, she explained in close detail. Ringing him, "making you answer your phone, and then hanging up on you, so you'd never get any sleep-that was something else." But, she finished, "you never answered your phone. Where were you? Playing around with Buster? Or what?"

"Bunny's looking at you."

She laughed gaily for Bunny's eye, then repeated, leaning close: "Where were you? You louse, I want to know!"

"At the Chinquapin-Plaza."

"So that was it!"

As he explained she indulged in retroactive rage, at the trick he had played her in not being home in person to suffer the vengeance she'd planned, he in a retroactive gloat at the neat way he had foiled her intention. But retroactivity is fleeting and of low voltage, so presently they laughed, and she said: "So all right, all right, all right. We'll say no more."

"Not so fast, not so fast!"

"Oh, for G.o.d's sake, Clay! What is it now?"

"You can come-I can't very well stop you. I might even be glad to see you. But it's mock-orange love for you unless you meet my condition."

"Condition? What condition?"

"Sally, the same old one."

"Oh? The Wild-Man-from-Borneo thing? Break up my marriage right away? Go to Reno and all that stuff?"

"That's it. You've got it."

"Well, I have to now, of course."

He was astonished, staring to make sure she was serious. She seemed to be, and he asked: "What do you mean, 'now'?"

"You're going away, I suppose?"

"That's right. And soon."

"Then you could walk out on me."

"Could? I have."

"Aw! Aw! Listen at him-walked out on me! My, I can hardly bear it! Well, you could come walking back, if I know you-and me. I imagine I just about know how to make you!"

"Get back to the subject. My going away-?"

"Compels me to make a choice."

"What choice, Sally? What are you talking about?"

"Well, there's you. And there's-!"

"The money?"

"Yes!"

For the first time she showed real emotion, her lips twitching, her eyes filling up. After some moments, getting herself under control, she went on: "Not that I like it, giving up twelve million bucks, but if it's that or giving you up-I guess I've made up my mind. I just don't think I'd like it, living my life without you. So, I've decided on you. I only hope you're worth it."

"Listen: I could be, at that!"

"You were always so modest, Clay!"

"I'm talking about the dough I could very well make before your life is lived. Sally, I'm on my way."

"Then, maybe I've done the right thing."

"I'll be home before five."

They sat studying each other, and then suddenly she said: "O.K., that's it, so let's cut out the jibbering and jabbering, and get down to bra.s.s tacks. I'm agreeable, and fact of the matter, I'd already made up my mind, before it all came out, what's in the paper today. But, I have to think of my child. He's with his grandfather, has been since Fourth of July, at the beachhouse on Brice's Point, and if I take off now and leave him there, he's just a hostage to hate, something to torture me with-in ways I couldn't think up but a spiteful old man can. So I have to get my baby. So you hold everything now until I find out from Bunny, before this thing breaks up, if she'll let me bring him to her and then take him with her tomorrow, when she leaves for Cape May, where her kids already are. Or in other words, if she'll do that for me, I'll go get Elly this evening and then later come to you-not forgetting, of course, I'm due at five o'clock, for a few minutes with you, if you still think you want to see me. Now, am I making sense or not?"

"Sounds A-O.K. with me."

"I'll see her and let you know."

They got separated, though, when the party spilled out on the lawn, where the photographers were "setting up," to have the advantage of sunlight. For some time Clay had to pose, with Bunny, Steve, and Pat, and then Pat grabbed his arm, dragging him up to say good-by. "We have to get out!" he whispered. "Or these people are stuck-no one can go till the guest of honor does. That's me-I'm him! You keep forgetting my unusual eminence!" So, in a matter of seconds, Clay was pumping Bunny's thick hand and then Steve's thin one. He still hadn't settled things with Sally, but then, beyond bobbing heads, she gave him a little wigwag and held up five meaningful fingers. He drove happily, in a fuzzy haze, all the way to the hotel. There Pat had to pack and was so fumble-fingered about it that Clay had a horrible fear he would miss the plane and knock his date in the head. However, by calling a bellboy to help, they finally got the job done, and made the plane by a hair. Clay got home at a quarter to five, but as he opened the door caught a familiar fragrance. When he looked she was there, on the reconditioned sofa, a beckoning hand extended. Hungrily, ecstatically, he wrapped her in his arms.

Their few minutes stretched to an hour, and then she scurried off, "to pick up some things at home that my baby's going to need-and change my dress, while I'm at it." He ate uptown, at the Chinquapin-Plaza, mainly to kill time until she returned. He was back by early evening and decided he ought to call Grace. "So O.K.," he told her, "you win your bet-congratulations."

"What bet, Clay?"

"About me. About her. About-"

"Oh! You made it up?"

"Everything's settled, Grace. She's come to her senses at last. She's doing it my way-breaking her marriage up now, having it done in Reno, which of course has been your way all along."

"I'm so glad! It makes me so happy I want to cry. ... And-so jealous I want to scream. Do you hear? I'd like to tear your eyes out!"

"That part is my one regret."

"Clay, you don't have any regret!"

"Well, listen, we've been pretty close."

"It's up to me to do my own weeping."

"Then, if you want it that way-?"

"It's not what I want. It's what has to be!"

He particularized a little, telling of Sally's meekness in acceding to his terms, her immediate plans for the child, and so on. Then he went on: "But I would say, Grace, we've come to a certain point, about family relationships. You and I will have to meet, and I thought the portrait could be the bridge. I mean, I could tell her what Pat said and ask if she knew anyone qualified to accept the commission. She'll have to nominate you-or at least, as we would think. And that'll do it. Do you agree?"

"Well-is a bridge really needed, Clay?"

"Well-I was just bubble-gumming."

"Can't we defer it, Clay?"

"O.K.-we let things take their course."

"Once again: I'm glad."

12.

HE PLAYED THE BEETHOVEN Third and the Tchaikovsky Sixth, and then, glancing at his watch, was startled to find it nearly eleven. She had said "somewhere around ten," which gave her ample time, as Brice's Point was a small place on the bay, an exclusive summer colony, a half hour's drive from town, so allowing for all delays, for argument, even for quarreling, four hours should have sufficed. He tramped around, a feeling growing on him that something had gone wrong. At last, looking up Elwood P. Gorsuch in the phone book and choosing the one at Ch's'p'ke Av of the three residences listed, he rang it. He had to hold on for a number of rings before a woman answered, seemingly much upset. She said, when he asked for Mrs. Alexis, "She's not here-n.o.body's here-there's n.o.body here to talk." By now greatly alarmed, he looked up the Alexis home and, for the first time, rang it. At once a man answered, and in panic he hung up. Then, in a helpless, demoralized state, he felt he had to call Grace. She listened, agreeing they had to do something, and told him to wait, not to make any more calls, "to keep your line clear," and she'd call him back.

In a few minutes she did, telling him: "At least I found out what it's about. Mr. El is dead-he died in Channel City Hospital, where they brought him after he choked on a nut. He always ate nuts and raisins after dinner, slapping great handfuls into his mouth, spite of everyone begging him not to-and tonight it happened, that's all. ... Or at least so Bunny Granlund says!" In spite of herself, Grace wailed it, and then went on to explain: "I called the Alexis house, and the man who answered the call, probably the one you heard too, wasn't Alec. When he started pumping me, trying to find out who I was, I hung up, as he sounded to me like police. That's when I got the bright idea of giving Bunny a ring, and she told me what she knew. It seems that Mary MacReady, Mr. El's nurse, the woman who answered you, had taken a night off when Sally showed up, and Sally put Elly to bed. Then she went out in the kitchen to make some iced tea. While out there she heard something, and when she went in the living room, Mr. El was on the floor, not able to get his breath. She thumped him on the back and, when that didn't help, called the police to beg them to get her an ambulance. They did, and she rode in the ambulance, taking Elly along. But poor Mr. El was dead when they got to the hospital. Then Sally called Bunny, who took my little darling, G.o.d bless her-and that's all that she knows. But, Clay, is that all? What are police doing there with Sally at home? Or are they police? Or-"

"You'd like to find out, wouldn't you?"

"I'd give anything to."

"O.K., let's do it together."

He said that driving past the house "ought to tell us something," and she volunteered her car, as she kept it out on the street. He walked to Rosemary Park, and she met him downstairs in the lobby, in dark blue pima suit, somber and businesslike. She threaded the residential street, a route strange to him, but then suddenly popped on the Harlow Theater, now dark. She rolled down the familiar street, and as they approached the house Clay spotted white sedans in the drive. "There they are!" he whispered. "Those are police cars."

She kept eyes left as they drove, and suddenly murmured: "They're out there, talking-and that's Alec with them!"

"They must have reached him, then."

"Clay, what's it about?"

"Maybe nothing. On a thing of this kind, don't forget, they have to investigate-there's an autopsy and all kinds of stuff. Doesn't have to mean anything. Spite of the red tape, it could be mainly routine. And we can't help tonight. All we can do, Grace, is louse her."

"You mean we have to wait?"

"Till she gets in touch with us."

She dropped him at the Marlborough, so upset she didn't say good night, and he went to bed, though not to sleep. It was around nine the next morning, and he had just finished dressing, when Miss Homan rang him to say a lady was there to see him. Grace, when he let her in, was gay in red-checked gingham, and explained: "I didn't know what was coming and-wanted to look casual, as though nothing had happened. As though nothing possibly could."

She had the paper with her and had thoughtfully bought two, so they both could read. Silently, side by side, they went through the main item, finding little in it that added to what they knew. The police, they learned, would "question Mrs. Alexis today," when the autopsy would be completed and its results known. "So," said Clay at length, "you got all worked up over nothing."

"I'm still all worked up."

"Over what?"

"Why are they questioning her?"

"Why not? She found him. They have to."

"Clay, I'm frightened to death."

"Have you talked to Sally yet?"

"For a minute, over the phone."

"And what did she say?"

"That 'it served him right'-for whapping the nuts in his mouth, I suppose she meant. 'Like a porpoise,' she called it. And that frightened me, too. Perhaps she didn't like him, perhaps n.o.body did, but her phone could be-what do they call it, Clay? 'Bugged,' I think is the word. And besides, he's dead."

"You can't exactly blame her."

"I can! She shouldn't talk like that!"

He continued offering her rea.s.surance, perhaps a bit in excess of what he really felt, and then she broke in to cut him off. Opening the paper to an inside page, she pointed to a box beside the jump head and told him: "All right, you want to know why I'm worked up-that's why. I don't think you read it. You'd better."

The heading was "Skeeter Tox Baffles Police," and the item told how officers answering the call had been perplexed by a smell in the air, which they took to be ether. It seemed that Sally confirmed this, explaining how she happened to have a bottle of ether with her. Her husband, she said, had had a rabbit he used in the act, "that had to be put away, and ether seemed the humane way to do it. So," she went on, "we got a bottle of it," and then later found out "it worked on mosquitoes too." She said, "They fall right over as soon as they come near it." So, going to Brice's Point, "where they don't have mosquitoes, of course, except occasional ones," she brought the ether along, "and of course nothing would suit Mr. El but that he had to try it too. So that's why the bottle was out. You rub it on, that's all-and it works."

"Well?" asked Clay after reading.

"That means nothing to you?"

"No, Grace. Not a blessed thing."

"Clay, I never heard of the rabbit-she uses it as a solvent, on her typewriter keys mainly. But also it happens to be the one thing that works on surgical gum-the stuff on adhesive tape. Does that mean something to you?"

"You mean if Mr. El-was all smeared up with that gum? From tape being slapped on his mouth? And then was quickly cleaned up-"

"Clay! No more, please!"

"But that's what you mean, isn't it?"

"You must not make me say it!"

"O.K., you don't have to say it, but it's what you mean just the same, and it's been in your mind, or something like it has, from the beginning, when you started your campaign to get me to marry her now. You've been scared to death of what's been in her mind, and I can't say that nothing was. But the point is, if something was in her mind, it's not there any more! What's been in her mind, that I don't know-she never talked about it to me any more than to you, and G.o.d knows I never brought the subject up. But the point is, if anything was in her mind, it's not there any more. She's given that idea up. She proved that yesterday when she promised to do as I wanted and break her marriage up! This thing now is coincidence-as you'll realize once you think about it. It had to happen sometime! But when it happens now, you fit the thing together and come up with adhesive tape-which exists, so far, in your imagination, and your imagination only! You're pinning something on her that's completely your own think-up. Do you hear what I say, Grace? You have self-manufactured jitters, not caused by what actually happened!"