by Craig Rice
He watched her anxiously. Indecision hovered like a momentary shadow over her lovely face.
“Well,” she said at last.
At the hospital, the plump receptionist told them coldly that dogs, even Australian beer hounds, were not allowed inside the hospital. She took a second look at the mutt and volunteered to take very good care of him while they were upstairs.
Uncle Ernie was propped up on pillows. There was a very small bandage at the back of his head. He welcomed them warmly. He announced that he felt fine, that it was a beautiful day outside, and that he was glad to see both of them looking so well. He added that he’d like to find out who had hit him on the head. No, no idea of reprisals. He’d like to present a small reward.
“First good night’s sleep I’ve had in years,” Uncle Ernie said.
Malone said, “You had something to tell me?”
“Three things,” Uncle Ernie said. “Do you have a match? Thanks. The first one is, Rodney didn’t kill those postmen.”
“The police know that already,” Malone said. “He’s back home.”
“Good. The second, I’ve known all along that Annie Kendall was alive.”
“We know that too,” Helene said. “That she was alive, I mean.”
“Splendid. But I doubt if either of you know this. Annie Kendall was—as a matter of fact, is—my wife.”
25
It was a full minute before Helene said weakly, “Will somebody please drop a pin?”
Uncle Ernie said, “I beg your pardon?”
Malone said, “What’s that?”
A nurse at the doorway looked at Helene as though she were a prospective patient, but for a different ward.
Helene said apologetically, “It’s just that I’ve always wanted to hear a silence you could hear a pin drop in, and now I have.” She beamed at the nurse and said, “I feel fine.”
The nurse sniffed, and came into the room. She was carrying a large paper-wrapped object which she plopped on the table beside Uncle Ernie’s bed. Then she looked at Uncle Ernie and gave him a smile which made it obvious that, after only a few hours of consciousness, he was a favorite on that floor.
“It’s for you, Mr. Fairfaxx,” she said, beaming. “Shall I unwrap it?”
“Please do,” Uncle Ernie said, beaming right back at her.
She removed the brown paper wrappings as though she expected to see the crown jewels of all Europe. Underneath them was a basket of uninteresting looking and slightly dusty fruit.
“How nice,” she said brightly. She picked up the accompanying card and read it. “From Rodney. How very nice.” She acknowledged Uncle Ernie’s murmured thanks with another toothpaste advertisement smile, smirked at Helene and Malone, and said coyly, “Now, you mustn’t stay too long. We must have our rest,”—to Uncle Ernie—“mustn’t we?”
Malone waited till her footsteps had receded down the hall and then said, “Frankly, I think she’s trying to marry you for your money.”
“She could do worse,” Uncle Ernie said.
“As Annie’s husband,” Malone said, “you’d inherit a hell of a lot of dough. But with or without the dough, you could do a lot better than that nurse.”
“Thank you,” Uncle Ernie said, with a faint ghost of a grin. He began pawing through the basket, discarding decaying grapes, discolored peaches and slightly mangy pears. At last he pulled out a bottle of Bushmill’s Irish whiskey.
“One thing about Rodney,” he said, “he may have a few faults, but he never lets you down.” He paused to pull the cork out with his teeth, and passed the bottle to Helene. “And knowing that no one ever eats the fruit sent to hospitals, he didn’t bother with finding something edible.”
Helene passed the bottle on to Malone and said softly, “When did you marry Annie Kendall?”
Malone wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, gave the bottle back to Uncle Ernie and said, “And why didn’t you ever tell?”
Before Uncle Ernie could answer, the little lawyer went on, “It was just about a year ago that you saw her, wasn’t it?”
Uncle Ernie sat bolt upright, the bottle clutched in his hand. By comparison with his face, the hospital sheets looked a healthy pink.
“My spies are everywhere,” Malone said cheerfully. He heard footsteps outside the door. “Lie down!”
Uncle Ernie lay down. Malone grabbed the bottle of Bushmill’s and shoved it under the bedcovers.
“He’s fine,” Malone said to the nurse who pushed open the door, “but I expect a relapse any minute.”
The door swung shut. Helene rose and said, “I can see this has got to be a private, uninterrupted conversation. Pardon me, while I fix everything.”
She walked out into the corridor.
“What’s she going to do?” Uncle Ernie whispered.
“I’d rather not know,” Malone said. “But whatever it is, you can bet that we won’t be disturbed. Pass me that bottle when you’re through with it, and start telling me about gentle Annie.”
He reached out his hand and said, “Thanks, pal. Believe it or not. I need this worse than you do.”
Helene returned, looking pleased with herself. She reported, “There won’t be any interruptions.”
Uncle Ernie tucked the bottle back in the fruit basket and rearranged the tired grapes and dingy oranges over it.
“If men knew half as much about women as women think they know about men,” he said wearily, leaning back against the pillows, “life could be a lot more simple.”
“Definitely,” Malone said, with feeling.
Uncle Ernie went on, “But this time, it was Annie who was fooled. You see, she thought I was the one who had all the money.”
“I did too,” Helene said. “You used to buy me pineapple sodas.”
Uncle Ernie smiled and closed his eyes. “It isn’t hard to understand. In those days I was what—in, well, those days—people used to call a gay young blade. Rodney was always very generous with me.”
He paused to dig the bottle of Bushmill’s from the basket.
“Is very generous, I should say,” Uncle Ernie said. Again he closed his eyes. “But try to picture those days. Rodney, bless his dear kind heart, a gentle and self-effacing young man, even then a stamp collector. Me, the—the—”
“The Glamour Boy,” Helene said helpfully. She caught her breath and added, “And you still are.”
“And always will be,” Malone said with fervor. He handed the bottle back to Uncle Ernie, who put it back in the basket.
“Gentle Annie,” Uncle Ernie whispered. “That’s the perfect name for her.” He opened his eyes and gazed at something far beyond human sight.
“There are some people in the world who are very rich,” Uncle Ernie said. “Some of them collect stamps. Some of them collect charities. Some of them collect wives. Some of them—” He paused suddenly. “There are some who are very, very poor. They collect coal from the sides of railroad tracks, and once in a while, see their children die of starvation. Then there are the in-between people, who have little bank accounts, and somehow manage to have their children’s teeth attended to, and their tonsils taken out.”
He drew a long, sighing breath. “And then there are the people who are so close to being rich that—it’s like being close to the smell of warm gingerbread, and not being able to touch it. Annie was one of those.”
Malone sat silent, his cigar dead between his fingers.
“Gentle Annie,” Uncle Ernie whispered, gazing at the ceiling. “She was lovely, lovely and delicate, and gentle. Somehow she had the rare quality of making every man believe that he was the first one who had ever held her in his arms. There always seemed to be a shyness about her passion, as though it were something she had suddenly discovered, like a baby finding its first toy under the Christmas tree. Surprised—and delighted with it.
“Then suddenly she would press her sweet, sweet face against your shoulder, warm tears would touch your skin, and all at once you would have the feeling that�
�well, that I suppose a person would have who had raped a child.”
He paused and said, “May I have a cigar, Mr. Malone?”
Malone woke quickly from a dream of gentle Annie, reached in his pocket.
“Thanks,” Uncle Ernie said. “A light?” A moment later he said, “Thanks again.”
Helene said suddenly, “Uncle Ernie—listen—”
He ignored her. He puffed at the cigar and said, “She was the most vicious little bitch I’ve ever known.” He puffed again and added, “And I haven’t lived what you’d call a sheltered life.”
Malone rose, strolled to the window, and muttered something about a nice view.
Thirty seconds later Uncle Ernie said, “She was like the first crocus in the spring, bursting its frail little head through the snow. Like the first star in the sky after sundown. Like the first timid snowflakes, drifting down in the fall.”
Helene said softly, “You must have loved her.”
“Hell,” Uncle Ernie said, “we all loved her. Rodney. Albert Lacy. Edward. Me. All of us. Only, she married me because she thought I had all the money.” Again he closed his eyes. “We were dancing. A waltz, I think. Suddenly I found myself begging her to elope with me.”
“And like a smart girl, she said yes,” Malone said, turning away from the window.
“You must have known a few women like her,” Uncle Ernie said.
“Sometimes I think he invented them,” Helene said grimly. “Go on, and don’t let him interrupt you again. Where did you elope to, Crown Point?”
“Elkhorn,” Uncle Ernie said.
“At least you showed originality,” Helene commented. “And don’t tell me, let me guess. You honeymooned at Lake Geneva. I hope to Heaven there was a moon.”
“There was.” A faint smile crossed Uncle Ernie’s pale face. “And I’d borrowed some money from Rodney. I didn’t tell him what it was for, and he naturally didn’t ask. I filled the room with roses. Not red or white, but pink roses. They seemed right for her. And for twenty-four hours, I was the happiest man in the world.”
“And she was the happiest girl,” Malone growled, “because she thought she’d married half the money in Chicago.” He chewed savagely on his cigar. “Then she found out the mistake she’d made, and the honeymoon was over.” He stalked back to the window and glared out at the sky. It was, he reflected, a damned dismal day.
“The scene that followed was not a pretty one,” Uncle Ernie said quietly.
He didn’t add any details, and Helene and Malone didn’t ask for any.
After a while, Uncle Ernie said, “No one knew anything about it. She went home to her family with some perfectly plausible story of having spent the time with a girl friend.”
The little lawyer raised a questioning eyebrow and Helene said, “Hell, Malone, they were getting away with that in the stone age. Go on, Uncle Ernie.”
“I went away on a trip,” Uncle Ernie said. “They were doing that in the stone age, too. Now and then I wondered how we were going to manage a quiet annulment. And now and then, wished there wouldn’t be one. Finally, I came home.”
“You came home,” Helene filled in for him, “and found that her engagement to Uncle Rodney had been announced. Gentle Annie was never one to waste any time. According to convention, the wedding had to be set months in advance, and the bride-to-be shipped off to visit relatives for most of the intervening time. There’s something left over from the stone age about that, too, but I can’t just seem to think what it is.”
Malone strode back from the window. “Now we come to a couple of important questions,” he said. He dug into the fruit basket, helped himself from the bottle of Bushmill’s and said, “Thank Rodney for me. Or I’ll thank him myself, rather, about half an hour from now.”
“Rodney Fairfaxx,” Uncle Ernie paused. “I’ve always been—” He paused again.
“You’ve always been devoted to Rodney Fairfaxx,” Malone said grimly. “And never mind how I know. Just go on.”
“By that time, I didn’t care if Annie Kendall lived, died, or had ever been born,” Uncle Ernie said. “But I didn’t want to see Rodney married to her. I warned her. I told her to find some kind of life for herself in England, make some excuse to Rodney that wouldn’t hurt his feelings too much, and never come back. Otherwise I was going to produce our marriage certificate and—well, people felt differently about divorce in those days. She tried to buy me off. It didn’t work.”
Malone nodded sagely. “She could have sued you for divorce,” he said, “but you’d probably have filed a counter-suit that would have permanently wrecked her chances.”
“I wouldn’t have,” Uncle Ernie said. “It was a bluff, but she didn’t know that. She went off to England, and I knew she’d land on her feet. Women like that always do. I admit I was a trifle worried when we heard she was returning. But when the news of the shipwreck came, and her name was on the passenger list—” He paused, grinned, and said, “I didn’t have the faintest idea she’d ever been on that boat. I did wonder how she’d managed it.
“Years later, I found out. She’d done just as I expected, found a rich sucker, and married him fast. To avoid explanations here, she’d actually taken passage. The idea would be that she’d fallen overboard somewhere enroute. But, with Annie’s usual luck, the ship went down.”
There was a little silence.
Helene said gently, “Then when you went to England last year, you looked her up.”
Uncle Ernie nodded. “Remember, I’d been with Rodney all these years while he waited for her letter. I had a mad, romantic, and very drunken idea of forgiving her and bringing them together.” He caught his breath. “She was old, and fat, and ugly, and bloated. Her hair was brassy-dyed. But she was still Annie Kendall.” He smiled. “She was taking exquisite care of her very rich invalid husband. Because it seemed that he’d carefully tied up his fortune in trusts, so that when he died, there wouldn’t be a red penny for gentle Annie.”
“Someone should say something at this point about Justice,” Malone muttered, “but I’m damned if I will.”
“Now,” Uncle Ernie said, “the rest is up to you. You can guess what Annie would do when she found herself broke. And how Rodney would react.”
“We can,” Helene said softly. “And having been around Rodney, and his collection of pictures of Annie all these years, you’d go to almost any length to keep him from seeing her when she was old, and fat and ugly.” She rose and kissed Uncle Ernie on the forehead. “I’m devoted to Rodney myself.”
There was a little silence. Malone continued to stare out the window. Uncle Ernie lay with his eyes closed.
Helene looked at her watch. “Fun is fun.” she announced, “but I’ve a sick husband at home. And the gentleman across the hall may want his sign back.”
Malone wheeled around. “I’ve been wondering how we had all this privacy.”
For answer, Helene pulled open the door and took down a large sign which proclaimed:
DO NOT ENTER SPECIAL NURSE ONLY
Across the hall, a young man in gay pajamas was sitting up in bed, reading a magazine. Helene tiptoed across the hall, stuck the sign back on his door, waved at him gratefully and received a cheerful wave in return.
“He’s hiding from a process server,” she explained, “and the ‘special nurse’ is his girl friend. I found that out when I peeked in to see how sick he was, when I took the sign down.”
“You’ll go far in this world,” Malone predicted. “Sometimes I would like to suggest how far.” He began fastening his overcoat.
“Just a minute,” Uncle Ernie said unexpectedly. “I’ve decided to tell you the rest of it.”
They waited, breathlessly.
“I suggest,” Uncle Ernie said, “that you find out just what is in Rodney’s will. There might be some members of the family who would be more than glad to have gentle Annie turn up alive.”
Malone said, “Do you happen to know what’s in the will?”
“I do,” Uncle Ernie said. He smiled wryly. “I might not be such a bad catch for that nurse, at that.”
26
Malone rescued the mutt from a half dozen pretty nurses and the plump receptionist, who assured him almost tearfully that she would love to find the little dog a good home. The mutt, considerably shaken by his experience, complained bitterly all the way to the car.
“That was very interesting,” Malone said, as Helene swung the car away from the curb. “I hope it was true.”
“If it is,” Helene began. She paused.
Malone said, “If Rodney Fairfaxx learned that gentle Annie was alive, he’d send for her and marry her. Obviously, Annie knows that, or she wouldn’t have sent him three registered letters telling him she was alive, a widow and penniless. And three innocent postmen wouldn’t have been killed.”
“If that happened, and Uncle Ernie kept his mouth shut,” Helene said, “Annie would be a bigamist.”
“No novelty to her, by this time,” Malone pointed out. “But under the circumstances, it might have been worth something to her for Uncle Ernie to keep his mouth shut. And maybe Uncle Ernie has figured that out himself.”
“But in that case,” Helene said, “Uncle Ernie would be the first one to want Uncle Rodney to know that she was alive.”
Malone sighed. “It’s too complicated for a man who needs sleep. Stop somewhere, I want to make a phone call.”
“You can get a drink, and the mutt can have a beer, at the apartment,” Helene said.
“I really do want to make a phone call.” Malone growled.
“We have a telephone too,” Helene said.
“It won’t do for this phone call,” the little lawyer said.
Helene glanced at him. His suit was mussed, his tie was working towards his left ear, his face was dirty, and he needed a shave. “All right,” she said, softening, “we’ll stop at Joe the Angel’s. But only for five minutes.”
“No, no, no,” Malone said hastily. “Anywhere else.”
“Why?”
“It’s out of our way,” Malone said.