by Frances
The telephone interrupted, with the violence of telephones. He took it from its cradle and said into it, “Oliver,” and said his own name with every evidence of anger. He said, “Yes, she does happen to be,” and then thrust the telephone at Lois, rather as if he planned to hit her with it. “For you,” he said, needlessly, and glared at her. She took the telephone. He got up from his desk and went to a window across the room and looked out of the window fixedly. She said, “Yes?” into the telephone.
“Howard Graham,” the pleasant voice said. “Mrs. Simpson said you might still be there. About that other wing? To fly on. And—a bite of lunch? You promised me a rain check.”
“Did I?” she said. “Well—”
“For practical purposes you did,” Graham said.
She hesitated a moment. It didn’t, she thought, make much difference, one way or the other.
“Where we left off,” Graham said. “At the Inn? Matter of fact, I’m at the Inn now and—”
Why not? she thought, and found no answer.
“All right,” she said. “It’ll be very nice, Mr. Graham. I’ll meet you there in a few minutes.”
He said, “At-a-girl,” as she had somewhat feared he might.
After she had put the telephone back in its cradle, Oliver continued, fixedly, to regard whatever he could see through the somewhat dusty window. She had never, she thought, amusedly, seen anyone not listen so avidly. She waited for some seconds, and he turned from the window and glared at her.
“These girls who are going to sit in the houses,” he said, angrily. “Who are they? What are their names? Don’t you realize, girl, that people like to see their names in a newspaper? That it’s names that make a paper like this?”
“You said—” she began.
“I said,” he told her. “I said. You got a list of the names?”
“No,” she said. “I haven’t, Mr. Oliver. And—it’s Mrs. Simpson who’s head of the committee and I don’t know whether she’s even got the girls lined up.”
He sighed deeply—a sigh of resignation, of forbearance under the utmost provocation.
“Go have your lunch,” he said. “Go have a nice long lunch with Howdy Graham, the ornament of the bar. Go—”
The sigh probably was what did it; the tone of his voice probably was what did it.
“You’re too right I’ll go,” Lois Williams said, and went.
She could—she was sure she could—feel his glare through the back of her neck. What an impossible person, she thought, and went down the wooden stairs and did not realize, until she had reached the bottom of the flight, that she had clicked her heels on the steps resolutely, to make them click. This somewhat surprised her and the surprise held as she walked, in the hot sun of summer, toward the coolness of the Inn—and toward the friendly, undemanding companionship of Howard Graham who, bungling or not, was no wild man from Borneo. Who, she thought, going into the coolness of the Inn, does Bob Oliver think he is? Who does he think he can push around? How ever did I happen to get so mad?
The last question did, she felt, need an answer. Why had she been so angered by the—admittedly impossible—actions of a man who was nothing to her, about whom she had not, except impersonally as the editor of the Glenville Advertiser, thought for months—or, indeed, ever really thought? I suppose, she thought, it’s because my whole life just now is—jangled. There is no theme, no pattern. So I, having no course plotted, go off on tangents—tangents of sudden anger, of fantastic imaginings. Like last night, and the nonsense about poor Mrs. Montfort.
That “nonsense” was now, as she walked the peaceful village street, a little embarrassing to recall. (And that she, although without revealing anything, had in effect brought it up with Robert Oliver was not reassuring.) When one started to engage in fantasy, without instantly knowing where reason left off and fantasy began, one had better watch out, Lois told herself, sternly. It was, probably, just as well that she was now going to have a matter-of-fact, not overstimulating lunch with a matter-of-fact, hearty member of Rotary. A way, she thought, to get her feet back on the ground, where feet belonged.
She turned up the short sidewalk to the Glenville Inn—“continuously operated as an inn since 1821,” the anniversary sign told her. “Built about 1762 but considerably enlarged in subsequent years.” (Committee on Place Identification, Mrs. Arnold Pruitt, Chairman.) She started up the wooden steps to the Inn’s wide porch. A man in a gray summer suit, a youngish man with receding hair, came out of the Inn, and came rather abruptly. In the instant before he saw Lois Williams he had an odd expression on his face—an expression almost of anger. Then Mrs. Harbrook’s nephew recognized Lois, and the expression changed completely, became most amiable.
“’Morning, Mrs. Williams,” Keating said and held out his hand. A great man for handshaking, Lois thought, but smiled politely and took the remembered softness of Keating’s hand. “Warm,” Keating said. “You’ll find it nice and cool inside.”
“I was so sorry to hear about Mrs. Montfort,” Lois said. “It must have been a real blow to your aunt.”
He looked grave, saddened. He nodded his head. “With her for years,” he said. “Well—mustn’t keep you out here in the heat.” He started on. “Nice seeing you again,” he said, as an afterthought. He walked away, briskly.
Lois went into the Inn, which was cool, as promised. Howard Graham was in the lobby—not glaring, not angry; looking as uncomplicated, as wholesome, as Rotary, as the Congregational Church. He said that this was awfully nice of her; he said he appreciated it. To prove appreciation, he beamed.
“Same table as last night,” Graham told her, with something like an air of triumph, when they were in the taproom. It seemed an odd occasion for triumph but, at the same time, there was a kind of reassurance in this repetition of little, unimportant things. Relax, Lois told herself.
“Wasn’t that Mrs. Harbrook’s nephew who just went out?” she said, as they waited for drinks. “As I was coming in?”
“Right,” Graham said. “Keating. John Keating. New York man. Wholesale stationery. Very fond of his aunt, apparently.”
Lois nodded her head to show she heard.
“One of the executors,” Graham said. “Me. Keating. And old Bob.” He said, “Thank you,” to the waiter, for cocktails. “Of Mrs. Montfort’s estate,” he added, making everything clear as clear. Then he said, “Cheers.” She lifted her drink and smiled at him over it. The martini was cold, pleasant on the tongue.
“It must be a sad time for Mrs. Harbrook,” Lois said. “With her such a long time. In a way, building a life around her.”
“Twenty years,” Graham said. “Leaves her at loose ends, certainly. Of course, the money will help. Money usually helps, any way you look at it.”
“Yes,” Lois said. Having money of her own had helped. On the other hand, if she had had, almost at once, to go out on her own— Another tangent.
“And,” Graham said, “there was plenty of time to get used to the idea. For Mrs. Harbrook, I mean. The old lady’d been failing for quite a while, Charley Young says.”
Charles Young was one of the four doctors in Glenville—the four doctors in four big houses on Main Street; the senior of the four doctors of Glenville.
“Just gradually wore out,” he said. “That’s the way he put it —the works wore out. Said that wouldn’t do for the certificate, of course, and put down the technical terms. But that was what it came to. I asked him what she died of and he said, ‘Of being eighty-four, Howdy,’ and then, ‘the works wore out.’”
He looked appropriately grave, thinking of the wearing out of human “works.” He turned to her and said, “What are we talking about this sort of thing for?”
Because, Lois thought, what else have we to talk about?
“I don’t know,” Lois said. “I brought it up, I guess. Mentioning Mr. Keating. He looked—upset.”
“Don’t know why,” Graham said. “Considering his aunt gets most of a—” He stopped. He
shrugged. “Nothing secret about it now, I guess,” he said. “Most of what the old lady left. Maybe he hadn’t realized that it takes time to wind these things up. Laymen are like that, some of them. But if my dear old aunt was going to inherit a million dollars or so I’d be bearing up pretty well. Wish mine had.”
“What,” Lois said, “about the grandson?”
“A thousand,” Graham said. “And any minute now he’ll come boiling around, I wouldn’t wonder. Can’t blame him, but there it is. Old lady of sound mind, will duly signed and witnessed. Not got a leg to stand on, that I can see. Try undue influence, maybe.”
He was to a degree, she thought, talking to himself, giving himself legal advice.
“And,” he said, “not get to first base with that. Can’t very well question the signature. Made sure of that this morning.”
That puzzled her—mildly, since her interest was mild. Cool, relaxed, no longer going off on tangents, mildly interested in something of no concern to her—that was fine.
“Boring you,” Graham said. “Talking shop.”
“No,” she said. “But—why make sure of the signature? We saw her sign.”
“Sure,” he said. “Only—well, I looked at it later, and it was pretty—quavery. She was weaker than any of us realized, I guess. Might have made something out of that—hard to see how, but I hate to leave shadows. Took it around and showed it to Ralph.”
She raised her eyebrows at “Ralph,” seeking clarification.
“Ralph Bourgelotti,” Graham said. “Cashier of the Citizens’ National. You must know old Ralph.” He cast around for further identification. “Tony Bourgelotti’s uncle,” he said. “Tony was—”
“The other witness,” she said. “I remember that, of course. The bank cashier’s his uncle?”
“Bourgelottis all over the place,” Graham said. “One of the first things I found out when I came here. Truck gardeners, contractors, a dentist over in Danbury, cashier at the Citizens’ National. Almost like the Tellers.”
She did know about the Tellers, who also were everywhere. One of the four doctors was Dr. Teller. There was also Teller’s Rubbish Disposal. And a Teller stowed purchases in car trunks outside the First National. “There’s a special kind of democracy in places like Glenville,” Ken had told her, when first he brought her to Glenville.
“You,” Graham said now, “could do with another drink, Mrs. Williams.”
There was concern in his friendly voice. My face tells everything, she thought. “No,” she said. “Thank you. Only one. But you go ahead.”
“I might,” he said, “I might at that.” He beckoned the waiter. He said, as she had supposed he would, “Sure you won’t change your mind?” and she said she was quite sure.
“You took the will around and showed the signature to Mr. Bourgelotti?” she said. “And—”
“Oh,” he said. “Yes. Got him to compare it to recent checks of hers, just to be on the safe side. Been quavery for a year and more, her signature had, and this was just like the others. Not a doubt in the world, Ralph said, and he’d swear to it on a stack of Bibles. That’s good enough—not that there was any question, or could be. Ralph knows signatures. Better, in the job he’s got.”
How my imagination runs away with me; how it did last night—Lois thought. (The care and cultivation of bromides. What a really objectionable man he is.) She continued to look attentive, hiding (she hoped) the fact that her mind was wandering, apparently in two directions at once. I must do something about it, she thought, and felt an odd embarrassment, remembering last night’s wild concoction—a concoction based on nothing but a voice. (“Women usually have carrying voices.” Precisely what a man would say—a man like Bob Oliver.) Mrs. Montfort murdered! Her will forged!
Mrs. Montfort, on the unquestionable word of Glenville’s senior physician, dead because years had ground her life away; dead, prosaically, of old age. Her signature as unquestionably hers, on the word of a man, trained to identify signatures, who had seen it many times over many years. At any rate, nobody knew Lois had indulged in fantasy, and morbid fantasy at that. Some consolation there.
“—building up,” Howard Graham said, and she hooked on to the words, as one might to the stair rail of a slowly moving train. “Even in the short time I’ve been here—” He shrugged, talking, as everybody sooner or later talked, about the expansion of the little village of Glenville. “Can’t stand in the way of progress.” “Preserve the rural character of the community.” She had heard the words a hundred times. The train moved slowly enough; there was no difficulty in boarding it.
“Long Meadow Manor,” she said. “I suppose it is out of character. But nobody wants houses with twenty rooms.”
“Precisely,” he said. “Drug on the market.”
It was conceivable that Howard Graham carried verbal conformity to extremes. And what was wrong with that, if you weren’t the supercilious type?
“Makes a fellow think he’s in the wrong trade,” Graham said. “Real estate—that’s the business. All a lawyer gets is the leavings, and not many of those. Drawing up the papers. Saying, sign here, please. And the boys like Ned Teller rake it in.”
Ned Teller. That was another Teller. How could she have forgotten him—“Edwin Teller, Real Estate and Insurance?”
“Of course,” Graham said, “everybody profits some place along the line. Including places like this.”
“This,” obviously, was the Glenville Inn. She maintained polite interest, which was all she had left. It was all as peaceful as she had supposed it would be, as soothing. It was beginning, also, to be a little boring. The death of poor Mrs. Montfort, and the events surrounding it—that had been interesting, in a non-compelling fashion. Because, of course, it had, remotely, touched her life.
“How?” she said, of his remark about—presumably—the Inn they sat in.
“Helps business,” he said. “People decide they want to live in Glenville. Want to look around for land, or for a house. So they stay here, at the Inn, while Ned and the others show their listings. Three or four of them here right now, Ned says. Not like a convention, precisely, but every little helps.”
She supposed so.
“Speaking of that,” he said, “would you rather eat here? Or in the dining room?”
“Here,” she said. “Unless you—?”
“Here it is,” he said, and signaled for the waiter, for menus. He urged steak; he read her selections from the menu, in a fashion very hostly. He told her the chicken blinis were always good. She ordered a crab meat salad. They waited.
“Speak of the devil,” Howard Graham said, and looked toward a tall man who stood in the doorway and looked around the taproom. “Hiya, Ned.”
“Hi,” the tall man said, and approached. “The robber I was just talking about,” Graham said. “Highway robber, aren’t you, Ned?”
“Sure,” the tall man said. “How’s ambulance chasing?”
“Couldn’t be better,” Graham told him. “Mrs. Williams, like you to meet Ned Teller. Ned, Mrs. Williams. Ned’s in the termite business, like I said. Pull up a chair.”
“No,” Edwin Teller said. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Williams. Expecting a prospect. Wants to see the old Morton place.”
“God,” Howard Graham said. “You mean to say that’s not fallen down yet? Last I heard—”
He stopped abruptly and, in the same moment, Edwin Teller, realtor, turned toward the doorway with a widely welcoming smile, and moved toward it with enthusiasm. The slender woman with short brown hair stood in the doorway.
“Mrs. Banks,” Edwin Teller said, in a tone stout Cortez, had he been a less taciturn man, might have found appropriate in addressing the Pacific Ocean.
“I hope,” Mrs. Banks, obvious prospect for the old Morton place, said, “I hope I haven’t kept you waiting.”
She spoke in a low voice, a husky voice. Overnight, she seemed to have developed laryngitis. Because, Lois Williams thought a little desperately, I couldn’t h
ave made that up, too.
Involuntarily, in her surprise, she looked at Howard Graham. He, too, had heard Mrs. Banks speak the night before; must—although of course he had built on the texture of a voice no such fantasy as she had built—notice how the voice had changed.
He looked back at her and there was nothing in his face, no surprise whatever in his face. His face was merely that of an amiable, matter-of-fact man waiting for his luncheon companion to say whatever she was about to. After a second or two, since she did not say anything, he said, “Yes, Mrs. Williams? You were going to say something?”
She hesitated a moment. Obviously, he had not heard the other voice—the other voice of what was certainly the same Mrs. Banks. (I can’t be wrong about that.) He might have been at the telephone—vaguely, she remembered he had been. Hadn’t Mrs. Banks said something after he came back? She could not remember.
“Nothing,” she said. “I wasn’t going to say anything.”
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About the Authors
Frances and Richard Lockridge were some of the most popular names in mystery during the forties and fifties. Having written numerous novels and stories, the husband-and-wife team was most famous for their Mr. and Mrs. North Mysteries. What started in 1936 as a series of stories written for the New Yorker turned into twenty-six novels, including adaptions for Broadway, film, television, and radio. The Lockridges continued writing together until Frances’s death in 1963, after which Richard discontinued the Mr. and Mrs. North series and wrote other works until his own death in 1982.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.