Part 37 (1/2)
”Everyone breaks promises. I didn't intend to fall in love with Connie. It simply happened. I met her in a doctor's waiting room quite by accident. But I didn't turn my back on your sister. I never have. I've done more for her than she ever did for me.”
She sneered at him with the arrogance of a second-generation aristocrat. ”My sister lifted you out of the gutter. What were you--an elevator boy?”
”I was a college student, and an elevator boy by my own choice.”
”Very likely.”
He leaned toward her, fixing her with his bright eyes. ”I had family resources to draw on if I had wished.”
”Ah yes, your precious mother.”
”Be careful what you say about my mother.”
There was an edge on his words, the quality of a cold threat, and it silenced her. This was one of several moments when I sensed that the two of them were playing a game as complex as chess, a game of power on a hidden board. I should have tried to force it into the open. But I was clearing up my case, and as long as Bradshaw was willing to talk I didn't care about apparent side-issues.
”I don't understand the business of the gun,” I said. ”The police have established that Connie McGee and Helen were shot with the same gun--a revolver that belonged originally to Connie's sister Alice. How did Tish get hold of it?”
”I don't really know.”
”You must have some idea. Did Alice Jenks give it to her?”
”She very well may have.”
”That's nonsense, Bradshaw, and you know it. The revolver was stolen from Alice's house. Who stole it?”
He made a steeple of his fingers and admired its symmetry. ”I'm willing to tell you if Mrs. Deloney will leave the room.”
”Why should I?” she said from her corner. ”Anything my sister could endure to live through I can endure to hear.”
”I'm not trying to spare your sensibilities,” Bradshaw said. ”I'm trying to spare myself.”
She hesitated. It became a test of wills. Bradshaw got up and opened the inner door. Through it I could see across a hall into a bedroom furnished in dull luxury. The bedside table held an ivory telephone and a leather-framed photograph of a white-mustached gentleman who looked vaguely familiar.
Mrs. Deloney marched into the bedroom like a recalcitrant soldier under orders. Bradshaw closed the door sharply behind her.
”I'm beginning to hate old women,” he said.
”You were going to tell me about the gun.”
”I was, wasn't I?” He returned to the sofa. ”It's not a pretty story. None of it is. I'm telling you the whole thing in the hope that you'll be completely satisfied.”
”And not bring in the authorities?”
”Don't you see there's nothing to be gained by bringing them in? The sole effect would be to turn the town on its ear, wreck the standing of the college which I've worked so hard to build up, and ruin more than one life.”
”Especially yours and Laura's?”
”Especially mine and Laura's. She's waited for me, G.o.d knows. And even I deserve something more than I've had. I've lived my entire adult life with the consequences of a neurotic involvement that I got into when I was just a boy.”
”Is that what G.o.dwin was treating you for?”
”I needed _some_ support. Tish hasn't been easy to deal with. She drove me half out of my mind sometimes with her animal violence and her demands. But now it's over.” His eyes changed the statement into a question and a plea.
”I can't make any promises,” I said. ”Let's have the entire story, then we'll think about the next step. How did Tish get hold of Alice's revolver?”
”Connie took it from her sister's room and gave it to me. We had some wild idea of using it to cut the Gordian knot.”
”Do you mean kill Tish with it?”
”It was sheer fantasy,” he said, ”_folie a deux_. Connie and I would never have carried it out, desperate as we were. You'll never know the agony I went through dividing myself between two wives, two lovers--one old and rapacious, the other young and pa.s.sionate. Jim G.o.dwin warned me that I was in danger of spiritual death.”
”For which murder is known to be a sure cure.”
”I'd never have done it. I couldn't. Actually Jim made me see that. I'm not a violent man.”
But there was violence in him now, pressing against the conventional fears that corseted his nature and held him still, almost formal, under my eyes. I sensed his murderous hatred for me. I was forcing all his secrets into the open, as I thought.
”What happened to the gun Connie stole for you?”
”I put it away in what I thought was a safe place, but Tish must have found it.”
”In your house?”
”In my mother's house. I sometimes took her there when Mother was away.”
”Was she there the day McGee called on you?”
”Yes.” He met my eyes. ”I'm amazed that you should know about that day. You're very thorough. It was the day when everything came to a head. Tish must have found the gun in the lockbox in my study where I'd hidden it. Before that she must have heard McGee complaining to me about my interest in his wife. She took the gun and turned it against Constance. I suppose there was a certain poetic justice in that.”
Bradshaw might have been talking about an event in someone else's past, the death of a character in history or fiction. He no longer cared for the meaning of his own life. Perhaps that was what G.o.dwin meant by spiritual death.
”Do you still maintain you didn't know Tish killed her until she confessed it last Sat.u.r.day?”
”I suppose I didn't let myself realize. So far as I knew the gun had simply disappeared. McGee might very well have taken it from my study when he was in the house. The official case against him seemed very strong.”
”It was put together with old pieces of string, and you know it. McGee and his daughter are my main concern. I won't be satisfied until they're completely cleared.”
”But surely that can be accomplished without dragging Let.i.tia back from Brazil.”
”I have only your word that she's in Brazil,” I said. ”Even Mrs. Deloney was surprised to hear it.”
”Good heavens, don't you believe me? I've literally exposed my entrails to you.”
”You wouldn't do that unless you had a reason. I think you're a liar, Bradshaw, one of those virtuosos who use real facts and feelings to make their stories plausible. But there's a basic implausibility in this one. If Tish was safe in Brazil, it's the last thing you'd ever tell me. I think she's hiding out here in California.”