The Eleventh Hour

by Robert Bruce Sinclair

She poured the coffee and he held a match for her cigarette and looked at the lovely oval of her face in the amber glow. He was at peace now, with her, and, more important, with himself; he felt a sense of well-being, of content, as heady as a tropical night. He wished, suddenly and wholeheartedly, that she had not found the apartment, and that she might remain here. And he wanted to make amends for his churlishness since her arrival.

  “Comfortable?” he asked.

  “Fine, thanks.” She smiled up at him.

  “Can I get you anything?”

  “Not a thing.”

  “How about some brandy? Or maybe there’s some green mint. It was a wonderful dinner — we ought to top it off with something.”

  “No thanks — and,do you mind waiting, just for a little while? I don’t mean to be a wet blanket,” she added hastily. “It’s only that I don’t want you to be at all confused, and I don’t want to be — because I’ve been too much so for the past couple of days.”

  “You’re being very cryptic,” he said. “You were starting to be, a little, before dinner, too.”

  “I won’t be any more,” she said. “I want to get everything straight. Because I can’t stand your being suspicious of me, as you’ve been ever since I’ve been here, Oh, you had reason to be — I can see that now. But it never occurred to me. And that’s what I want to straighten out.” She was leaning toward him, eager sincerity shining in her eyes, and she looked very young.

  He couldn’t help himself. “You’re utterly lovely,” he said. The words had to be spoken.

  “What?” She drew back. “Don’t confuse me any more.” She hesitated a moment. “You’ve shown quite a talent for silence since I’ve been here. Don’t stop now.”

  “I’d like to make up for some of that silence.”

  “In a little while. But there’s something I want to say now — quite a few things, in fact.”

  “I’m listening.”

  She took a deep breath. “When I first heard, on the radio, of Helen’s — death, there were no details at all. But I felt — instinctively, I knew, that you’d done it.”

  “What!” He had expected almost anything, but he was not prepared for quite such a stunning blow.

  “Please,” she said. “I caught the first plane I could, thinking you’d be in jail when I got here. I wanted to let you know that I was on your side — that I’d be a character witness, or whatever you call it. I mean, I could have told what Helen was really like, and what justification you had. It wasn’t that I hated Helen — it’s just that there was something all wrong with her, and since Mama’s gone, I’m the only one who could have helped you.”

  “Go on,” Conway said, his throat dry.

  “Then when I got here and saw the papers at the airport, and read that you weren’t being held, I had to think that maybe I was wrong. That’s when I started getting confused, because I didn’t believe that sex-maniac thing for a minute.”

  “You don’t know Los Angeles.”

  “Maybe not. But I do know that that kind of thing just never happens to people like Helen.”

  “You haven’t seen Helen for five years — how can you be so positive of what she was like? People change, you know.”

  Betty nodded. “I even began to believe that, for a while. You were pretty convincing — and then it seemed to me you started overdoing it. And I got more confused, and didn’t know where I was.”

  “Obviously, in a state of utter confusion.”

  She shook her head. “Not now. You see, there was another thing I couldn’t understand — why you were so terribly rude, so frightfully anxious to get rid of me. And then this morning, after I left here, it suddenly came to me.”

  “What did?”

  “The explanation. I have to tell you this, so you’ll understand what I did. It’s going to sound terribly conceited, but — well, I’ve never known a man who’s seen as much of me as you have, who — I don’t mean it that way, and I’m sorry about the sunsuit this morning—”

  “Please don’t be,” he said. “You were sheer delight this morning.”

  “I’m not fishing. I only meant that I’ve never spent this much time with a man without his making some kind of a pass at me. I know that sounds awful, but — well, it didn’t seem normal. And I’m sure you are.” Conway himself, at this point, was sure of nothing. “Then I thought, ‘Maybe I’m all right for Topeka, but this is Hollywood.’ So I walked down Hollywood Boulevard, and was very observant, and the reactions seemed about the same as at home, or maybe more so. So that’s when I was certain.”

  “Certain of what?”

  “That there was another woman.” Conway half-rose from his chair, then collapsed again. “Then I wasn’t confused any more, because everything made sense,” she continued. “Originally I’d thought you’d probably killed Helen in a fit of rage, which would be perfectly understandable — I wanted to myself a dozen times when we were kids. But as soon as I saw you I knew you weren’t like that — you’re the long-suffering type, who’d stick until she drove you crazy.” He stared at her, unnerved by this mixture of fact and fantasy. “Or you could have gotten a divorce — Helen would have made you pay, but it would have been worth it. But — if you’d found someone else, that’s the one thing Helen would never forgive, and you’d never be able to get rid of her. So that explained why you did it, and why you could look at me as if I was painted on a wall, and why you were so anxious to get me out of the house. I even rather enjoyed thinking how jealous of me she must be — the woman, I mean.”

  Conway had listened with increasing incredulity and relief to this elaborate scenario. So long as she’s that far off the track, he thought, I don’t have to worry. “Have you done much writing, Betty?” he asked. “Because what you’ve dreamed up is the damnedest fiction I’ve ever heard.”

  “U-um,” she said noncommittally. “Well, after I’d figured this all out, I realized that my coming and staying with you was the luckiest thing that could have happened to you. Because as long as I was in the house, she couldn’t come here, and you couldn’t go to see her, so there was a good deal less chance of your throwing suspicion on yourself. So then I decided that the best thing would be for me just to stay on here with you — and tell you why, of course.”

  “Then why did you get the apartment?”

  “That’s just it — I didn’t. I went to Grauman’s Chinese, and two broadcasts, and did some window-shopping, and came home. And then that detective talked to me.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I didn’t tell him anything. I said he talked to me.”

  Conway breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank heaven you didn’t tell him about these pipe dreams — that’s all he’d need. What did he have to say to you?”

  “He was very apologetic about his insinuations of yesterday. And then he said he liked you, and my being here made it very tough on him and the police department. Because if the neighbors or anybody found out about it, and it got to the papers, it would throw suspicion on you right away, and then the police would have to do a lot of investigating, which would be very unpleasant for you, even though they knew you were innocent. And then I suddenly realized that it had just been my own conceit that made me think there was another girl, and that you had a perfectly good reason for wanting to get rid of me. So I knew I’d better get out of here — and quick.”

  “That, unfortunately, makes sense,” he said. “And it’s the first thing you’ve said that does,” he added. “It’s not that I have anything to hide, and I’m not worried about the police. But the newspapers would have a field day if they found out that an attractive — to say the least — young woman had moved in with me the day after my wife’s body was found. I don’t know what they’d make of the fact that she was my half-sister-in-law, but you can be sure it would be something nasty. So, much as I’d like you to stay here, now that I’ve gotten to know you, I think it would be a lot better for both of us if you got a place of your own — at least for a wh
ile.”

  “Shall I go to a hotel tonight?”

  He considered for a moment, and the prospect of seeing her again at breakfast overrode common sense. “I don’t think it’s as urgent as that,” he said. “You can go out tomorrow and find a place. I’d go with you, but I might be recognized, and that wouldn’t look too well, either.”

  “I’ve certainly loused things up,” she said.

  “You haven’t,” Conway assured her. “And I’m grateful to you for wanting to be on my side.” It would do no harm to let her think he believed her. And, he reflected, perhaps he did.

  She came over and sat beside him on the settee. “Thank you for saying that,” she said. “It’s been so awful for you, and all I’ve done is complicate things, when I really wanted to be of some help, in some way. Please believe me.” She was very close; he looked down at the soft, warm eyes, the red, inviting mouth, and it was inevitable: his arms went round her, and their lips met, gently at first, then with increasing ardor, as each felt the urgency of the other’s desire.

  She drew away and looked up at him gravely. “You didn’t love her, did you?”

  “No,” he said, and then stopped. Had this whole performance been a trap? He kissed her again. If it was, it was a snare of perfumed velvet and satin and rose petals. This time it was Conway who broke the embrace and looked at her. “I didn’t love her. But you were wrong in thinking that I couldn’t stand her or that she was driving me crazy, or that I killed her. I just wasn’t in love with her any more.”

  She raised her face to his, and her humid lips mutely asked to be kissed. Afterward, her arms tightly about him, she asked, “Do you love me?”

  “Yes. Yes — I think so. It’s all a little bewildering.”

  “I know,” she said.

  “When did you begin to think you loved me?” Then she laughed. “That sounds awfully ingenue, doesn’t it?”

  “Somehow I don’t seem to mind.” She kissed him lightly. “It was sometime between dinner and when I first kissed you,” he said.

  She sighed contentedly, her head against his shoulder. “It’s been a wonderful evening. Since we’ve been home, I mean,” she amended. “Why did Bauer take us to that frightful drugstore?”

  Conway smiled at the recollection. “He had the waitress there who served Helen and me before we went to the movie. That was his unique method of having her identify me.”

  “Why did you tell him all that stuff about Helen having a roll of money, and your ‘little disagreements’?”

  Involuntarily Conway tightened, and he knew that the girl must have felt it too. “It just happened to be true,” he said, and was conscious that his voice had taken on an aggressive note. He stroked her hair and tried to recapture their earlier mood. “I’m glad you didn’t find an apartment,” he said.

  She drew away from him and sat erect. “Don’t say that,” she said.

  “Why not? Don’t you love me?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “Of course I do. Since the moment I walked in the door, I guess. I’m going to hate being alone and away from you. But — it isn’t any good.” She slipped from his arms and stood looking down at him. “Not unless we trust and believe in each other. And I don’t believe you’ve told me the truth — I don’t believe you trust me enough to tell me. I don’t blame you for anything you’ve done — not anything. I understand. But if we’re to mean something to each other, I’d have to know the truth — I’d have to know that you knew you could trust me that much. I can’t love a man who has to be suspicious and on guard every other minute we’re together.”

  “You’re wrong,” he said without hesitation. Then he looked at her, rose, and flicked his cigarette into the garden. The answer had been instinctive, but now he was wallowing in a sea of indecision. She knew the truth — and for a moment he longed for the peace he could find only with someone who did know, someone with whom he could drop his eternal vigilance. He looked at her: the luminescent eyes were guileless; she was a figure of utter enchantment, offering him love and tenderness and peace. Then he brought himself up sharply and realized he was being naive. The alluring charm might be bait, the promised tender raptures could be the promise of a noose around his neck. The gamble was too great: he had to play it alone.

  “I’ve told you the truth,” he said. “I had nothing to do with Helen’s death.”

  “Please,” she said. “Don’t tell me if you can’t trust me. Just don’t lie to me.” She stabbed out her cigarette. “It’s getting late, and I want to start out early tomorrow. I’m going up to bed.”

  He looked at her slim loveliness silhouetted in the light from inside, and moved toward her. Gradually, as though in spite of herself, she responded to his kiss. But when she drew away, she looked at him with cool composure.

  “Just to save any embarrassment,” she said, “I think I ought to tell you that I’m going to lock my door. Good night.”

  She had been gone for several minutes before Conway’s reason was able to dominate his emotions. Then, tormented and desolate as he was, he decided that perhaps it was just as well.

  Chapter eleven

  Bauer called early the next morning to tell Conway he would be wanted at the line-up and that his car had been released and could be picked up afterward. When he had shaved and dressed, he came downstairs to find Betty at the breakfast table. She was wearing the suit in which she had arrived.

  “I’m disappointed,” he said. “I’d hoped for the other breakfast costume.”

  She poured the coffee and smiled at him.

  “Some other time — maybe. You might let me come over here occasionally and take a sunbath. But as soon as I do these dishes, I’m off. I’ve got to find a place today.”

  “They’re releasing my car this morning — I ought to be back here with it by noon. Wait until then — I can drive you around this afternoon, cover a lot more ground, and save a good deal of wear and tear on the feet.”

  “How will that look?”

  “I’ll stay in the car. I don’t think anyone will notice me.”

  When Detective Larkin arrived to pick him up, Conway was waiting on the porch. He was not sure whether Bauer had reported Betty’s arrival, and there seemed no reason for Larkin to learn of it. As he got in the car, he wondered whether the police customarily provided transportation for the bereaved kin of murder victims. He could only conclude that the Department was aware that it was a target for criticism and, by its treatment of him, hoped to forestall at least one detractor. They’re wasting their money, he thought; I’d be the last person in the world to criticize anything about this police department.

  He skimmed through the papers as they drove. One carried the story on page three, another on page five, and neither said anything that had not been said in every story since the discovery of the body. Clearly, the newspapers were losing interest in the case, a fact which would very soon permit the police to drop it. As he put the papers on the seat beside him, he reflected that this might be the last time he would be called to Headquarters.

  Bauer met him and took him into the large room where the line-up took place. The detective seemed unusually taciturn; he found chairs for them and buried himself in his crossword puzzle. As each new group was paraded onto the brilliantly lighted platform, his head came up only long enough for a fleeting glance at the suspects, and then his attention returned to the puzzle.

  Conway, though he had nothing else to occupy his interest, paid little more attention to the proceedings than did the sergeant. The motley groups who were herded on, made to stand for a few moments or several minutes, and then herded off, seemed more miserable, decrepit, and unshaven than on the earlier day. Conway continued to look in the general direction of the stage, as a matter of form, but it could hardly be said that he was concentrating on it.

  After a half-hour of this, when Conway was very bored and acutely depressed, an assortment of unfortunates appeared who, as a group, were indistinguishable from any of the others who had preceded
them. Bauer gave them his customary quick glance, and then leaned to Conway.

  “You been looking ’em all over carefully?”

  Conway nodded.

  “Haven’t seen anybody looked familiar?”

  “Not a soul.”

  “Nobody in this bunch?”

  Conway knew Bauer well enough to realize that there was someone in this group the detective expected him to identify. He looked searchingly at each individual, but when he had gone from one end of the line to the other, and back again, he was forced to turn to Bauer and shake his head.

  “Okay,” the detective said. “Let’s get out of here.” Conway followed him out of the room and into the hall. “We’re going down to Ramsden’s office.”

  Conway fell into step with the detective as he tried to fathom the meaning of what was taking place. It seemed probable that they had turned up a suspect. But why should he be expected to recognize him? Surely there was no one in that last unkempt, unshaven lot he had ever seen before. A sudden recollection of Bauer’s previous disappointments almost made him smile; the detective, he feared, was in for another one this morning. Conway hoped he wouldn’t be too stubborn about this new suspect, whoever he was.

  Captain Ramsden was evidently expecting them. “Good morning, Mr. Conway,” he said.

  “Good morning, Captain. Nice to see you again.”

  “Have a chair.” He turned to Bauer. “Well?”

  “He claims he didn’t recognize him.”

  “Really?” Ramsden looked at Conway. “There’s nothing to be gained by that, you know.”

  “All I know is that I haven’t the faintest notion of what you’re talking about,” Conway said. “Would you mind letting me in on it?”

  “I can understand your reticence, Mr. Conway,” Ramsden said, “your desire, now that she’s dead, to protect your wife’s reputation as best you can, regardless of your personal feelings in the matter. But I have to remind you that you may be obstructing justice.”

  “I guess I’m not very bright,” Conway said, thoroughly puzzled. “Could you tell me in words of one syllable?”