by Gore Vidal
“That’s nice.”
“I’d hoped to have her over tomorrow but since this … well, I don’t quite know how to act.”
“As usual, I’d say. It’s a terrible tragedy but …”
“But she was my niece and very close to me … it wasn’t as if she were, well, only a guest.” I realized that I was expendable. “Perhaps we can just have a few people over … friends of the family. I’m sure that’d be proper.”
“I have an invitation,” I said boldly, “to go to the Yacht Club dance tonight and I wondered, if you weren’t going, whether I might …”
“Why certainly, go by all means. But please, please don’t talk to anyone about what has happened. I can’t possibly go and I’m not sure the others would want to either since they were all more or less connected with Mildred. You of course have no reason not to.” And, feeling like a servant being given Thursday afternoon off, I was dismissed while Mrs. Veering took off for her bedroom and, no doubt, a jug of the stuff which banishes care.
An hour later, I had the drawing room all to myself, which was fortunate because the butler advanced upon me with a member of the press, a chinless youth from one of the News-Services.
I waved him into a chair grandly.
“I want to speak with Mrs. Rose Clayton Veering and Mr. Paul Brexton,” said the newshawk firmly, adenoidally.
“You must be satisfied with me.”
“I came here to talk with Mrs. Rose …”
“And now you must talk to me,” I said more sharply. “I am authorized to speak for Mrs. Veering.”
“Who are you?”
“Peter Cutler Sargeant II.”
He wrote this down slowly in what he pretended was shorthand but actually was I could see, a sloppy form of longhand. “I’d still like to …” he began stubbornly, but I interrupted him.
“They don’t want to talk, Junior. You talk to me or get yourself out of here.”
This impressed him. “Well, sir, I’ve been to see the police and they say Mrs. Brexton was drowned this morning at eleven six. That right?”
I said it was. I fired all the facts there were at him and he recorded them.
“I’d like to get a human interest angle,” he said in the tone of one who has just graduated from a school of journalism, with low marks.
“You got plenty. Brexton’s a famous painter. Mrs. Veering’s a social leader. Just rummage through your morgue and you’ll find enough stuff to pad out a good feature.”
He looked at me suspiciously. “You’re not working for any paper, are you?”
I shook my head. “I saw a movie of The Front Page once … I know all about you fellows.”
He looked at me with real dislike. “I’d like to see Mrs. Veering just to …”
“Mrs. Veering is quote prostrate with grief unquote. Paul Brexton quote world-famous modern painter refuses to make any comment holding himself incommunicado in his room unquote. There’s your story.”
“You’re not being much help.”
“It’s more help than nothing. If I didn’t talk nobody would.” I glanced anxiously around to make sure none of the other guests was apt to come strolling in. Fortunately, they were all out of sight.
“They’re doing an autopsy on Mrs. Brexton and I wondered if …”
“An autopsy?” This was unusual.
“That’s right. It’s going on now. I just wondered if there was any hint …”
“Of foul play? No, there wasn’t. We all witnessed her death. Nobody drowned her. Nobody made her swim out into the undertow. She’d had a nervous breakdown recently and there’s no doubt but that had something to do with her death.”
He brightened at this: I could almost read the headline: “Despondent Socialite Swims to Death at Easthampton.” Well, I was following orders.
I finally got him out of the house and I told the butler, in Mrs. Veering’s name, to send any other newspaper people to me first. He seemed to understand perfectly.
Idly, wondering what to do next, I strolled out onto the porch and sat down in a big wicker armchair overlooking the sea. Walking alone beside the water was Allie Claypoole. She was frowning and picking up shells and stones and bits of seaweed and throwing them out onto the waves, like offerings. She was a lovely figure, silhouetted against the blue.
I picked up a copy of Time magazine to learn what new triumphs had been performed by “the team” in Washington. I was halfway through an account of the President’s golf scores in the last month at Burning Tree when I heard voices from behind me.
I looked about and saw they were coming from a window a few feet to my left. The window, apparently, of Brexton’s bedroom: it was, I recalled, the only downstairs bedroom. Two men were talking. Brexton and Claypoole. I recognized their voices immediately.
“You made her do it. You knew she wasn’t strong enough.” It was Claypoole: tense, accusing.
Brexton’s voice sounded tired and distant. I listened eagerly; the magazine slipped from my lap to the floor while I strained to hear. “Oh, shut up, Fletcher. You don’t know what you’re saying. You don’t know anything about it.”
“I know what she told me. She said …”
“Fletcher, she was damned near out of her mind these last few months and you know it as well as I do … better, because you’re partly to blame.”
“What do you mean by that crack?”
“Just what I say. Especially after Bermuda.” There was a long pause. I wondered if perhaps they had left the room.
Then Claypoole spoke, slowly: “Think whatever you want to think. She wasn’t happy with you, ever. You and your damned ego nearly ruined her … did ruin her.”
“Well, I don’t think you’ll be able to blame her death on my ego …”
“No, because I’m going to blame it on you.”
A cold shiver went down my spine. Brexton’s voice was hard. “There’s such a thing as criminal libel. Watch out.”
“I expect to. I’m going to tell the whole story in court. I expect you thought I’d be too afraid of repercussions … well, I’m not. When I get through there won’t be anybody who doesn’t know.”
Brexton laughed shortly. “In court? What makes you think there’ll be a court?”
“Because I’m going to tell them you murdered her.”
“You’re out of your mind, Fletcher. You were there. How could I murder her? Even if I wanted to?”
“I think I know. Anyway it’ll be your word against mine as to what happened out there, when she was drowning.”
“You forget that young fellow was there too. You’ve got his testimony to think about. He knows nothing funny happened.”
“I was closer. I saw …”
“Nothing at all. Now get out of here.”
“I warned you.”
“Let me warn you then, Fletcher: if you circulate any of your wild stories, if you try to pin this … this accident on me, I’ll drag Allie into the case.”
Before I could hear anything more, the butler appeared with the news that a reporter from the local paper was waiting to see me. Cursing my bad luck, puzzled and appalled by what I had heard, I went into the drawing room and delivered my spiel on the accidental death of Mildred Brexton. Only I wasn’t too sure of the accident part by this time.
III
For some reason, the newspapers scented a scandal even before the police or the rest of us did. I suppose it was the combination of Mrs. Veering “Hostess” and Paul Brexton “Painter” that made the story smell like news way off.
I spent the rest of that afternoon handling telephone calls and interviewers. Mrs. Veering kept out of sight. Mary Western Lung proved to be a source of continual trouble, however, giving a series of eyewitness accounts of what had happened calculated to confuse an electric eye much less a bewildered newspaperman.
“And so you see,” she ended breathlessly to the local newspaperman who sat watching her with round frightened eyes, “in the midst of life we are we know not where, e
ver. I comprehend full well now the meaning of that poor child’s last words to me, I hope the water isn’t cold. Think what a world of meaning there was in that remark now that we know what she intended to do.”
“Are you suggesting Mrs. Brexton killed herself?” The member of the fourth estate was drooling with excitement.
I intervened quickly, pushing him to the door. “Of course not,” I said rapidly. “There’s no evidence at all that she wanted to do such a thing; as a matter of fact, she couldn’t’ve been more cheerful this morning …”
“And I’ll send you a copy of ‘Book-Chat,’ the last one.” Miss Lung shouted at the retiring interviewer’s back. I told the butler to let no one else in for the day.
I turned to Miss Lung. “You know that Mrs. Veering asked me to look after the press, to keep them from doing anything sensational. Now you’ve gone and put it in their heads that she intended to commit suicide.”
“Did commit suicide.” Miss Lung smiled wisely at me over her necklace of chins.
“How do you know?”
“She was a marvelous athlete … a perfect swimmer. She deliberately drowned.”
“In full view of all of us? Like that? Struggling? Why, I saw her wave for help.”
Miss Lung shrugged. “She may have changed her mind at the last minute … anyway you can’t tell me she would’ve drowned like that if she hadn’t wanted to.”
“Well, as somebody who was a few feet from her when she was still alive I can tell you she was doing her best to remain in this vale of tears.”
“What a happy phrase! Vale of tears indeed!”
“You said it.” I was disgusted. “Did you tell the police you thought she intended to drown on purpose?”
“Why certainly.” Miss Lung was bland. I understood then the promptness of the autopsy. “It was my duty as a citizen and as a friend of poor Mildred to set the record straight.”
“I hope you’re right … I mean, in what you did.”
“I’m sure I am. Didn’t you think that man from the papers awfully distinguished-looking? Not at all my idea of the usual sort of newspaperman.…”
A telephone call from Liz broke short this little chat. I took it in the hall.
“Peter?”
“That’s right. Liz?”
“What on earth is going on over there? Are you all right?”
“It didn’t happen to me.”
“Well, you should hear the stories going around. Just what did happen?”
“One of the guests … Mildred Brexton, drowned this morning.”
“Oh, isn’t that awful! And on a week end too.”
I thought this a strange distinction but let it go. “The place is a madhouse.”
“She’s not the painter’s wife, is she?”
When I said she was, Liz whistled inelegantly into the phone, nearly puncturing my eardrum. People like Brexton are the fragile pillars on which the fashion world is built.
“That should make quite a splash.”
I agreed. “Anyway I’m coming to the dance tonight. The others are staying in but I’m to be allowed out.”
“Oh good! I’ll leave an invitation at the door for you. Isn’t it terribly interesting?”
“You might call it that. See you later.”
As I hung up, Mrs. Veering sailed slowly into view, gliding down the staircase with a priestess-smile on her lips. She was loaded to the gills.
“Ah, there you are, Peter.” For some reason her usually strong voice was pitched very low, gently hushed as though in a temple. “I understand we’ve been besieged by members of the press.’
“Quite a few. More than you’d expect for a run-of-the-mill accident.”
Mrs. Veering, catching a glimpse of Mary Western Lung in the drawing room, indicated for me to follow her out onto the porch where we could be alone with the twilight. The beach looked lonely and strange in the light of early evening.
“Do you think I should give an exclusive interview to Cholly Knockerbocker or one of those people?” She looked at me questioningly; her face was very flushed and I wondered if she might not have high blood pressure as well as alcohol in her veins.
“Has he … or they asked you for one?”
“No, but I’m sure they will. We’ve been getting, as you say, an unusual amount of attention.”
“I don’t see it’d do any harm. I’d say that Knickerbocker would come under the heading of the right sort of publicity.”
“So should I. My only fear is people will think me heartless in giving a Labor Day party so close to my niece’s death.”
“I wouldn’t think so,” I said soothingly: I had a pleasant week or two around Easthampton not to mention a salary to think of. I had no intention of letting Mrs. Veering give up her party at this stage of the game. “They’ll all understand. Also, they’ll be impressed by the publicity.”
“Poor Mildred.” With that eccentric shift of mood which I’d noticed earlier, Mrs. Veering had changed from calm rational matron to Niobe, weeping over her children, if that’s the one who wept over her children. She stood there beside me, quite erect, the tears streaming down her face. It was unnerving. Then, as suddenly as it’d started, her weeping ended and she wiped her eyes, blew her nose and in her usual voice said, “I think you’re absolutely right. I’ll have the invitations sent out Monday come hell or high water.”
Considering the nature of her niece’s death, I thought “high water” inapt but what the hell. “There’s one thing I think I should tell you,” I said, stopping her as she was about to go into the house.
“Yes?” she paused in the doorway.
“Your friend Miss Lung told the police she thought Mrs. Brexton drowned herself on purpose.”
“Oh no!” Mrs. Veering was shocked into some semblance of normality. “She didn’t! She couldn’t!”
“She did and she could. I found out when she cornered one of the newsmen a little while ago.”
The angry alcoholic flush flickered in her cheeks, mottling them red and white. “How could she?” She stood weakly at the door.
I was soothing: “I don’t suppose it’ll do much harm. Nobody can prove it one way or the other unless of course there was a last message of some kind.”
“But to have people say that … to say Mildred … oh, it’s going to be awful.” And Mrs. Veering, having said that mouthful, made straight for the drawing room and Miss Lung. I went upstairs to change for dinner.
IV
I have my best ideas in the bathtub … at least those that don’t come to me unheralded in another part of the bathroom where, enthroned, I am master of the universe.
As I crawled into the old-fashioned bathtub, a big porcelain job resembling an oversize Roman coffin, I thought seriously of what had happened, of the mystery which was beginning to cloud the air.
It’s a temptation to say that, even then, I knew the answer to the puzzle but honesty compels me to admit that I was way off in my calculations. Without going into hindsight too much, my impressions were roughly these: Mildred Brexton had had a nervous breakdown for reasons unknown (if any); there was some relationship between Claypoole and her which Brexton knew about and disliked; there were indications that Brexton might have wanted his wife dead; there was definite evidence he had attacked her recently, bruising her neck … all the relationships of course were a tangle, and no concern of mine. Yet the possibility that Mildred had been murdered was intriguing. I am curious by nature. Also I knew that if anything mysterious had happened I would be able to get the beat on every newspaper in New York for the glory of the N.Y. Globe, my old paper, and myself. I decided, all things considered, that I should do a bit of investigating. Justice didn’t concern me much. But the puzzle, the danger, the excitement of following a killer’s trail was all I needed to get involved. Better than big-game hunting, and much more profitable … if I didn’t get killed myself in the process.
I made up my mind to get the story, whatever it was, before the week end was ove
r. I nearly did too.
I dressed and went downstairs.
Our doughty crew was gathered in the drawing room, absorbing gin.
To my surprise Brexton was on hand, looking no different than he had the night before when he made martinis. In fact, he was making them when I joined the party.
Everybody was on his best graveyard behavior. Gloom hovered in the air like a black cloud. I waded through it to the console where Brexton stood alone, the noise of the cocktail shaker in his hands the only sound in the room as the guests studiously avoided each other’s gaze.
“What can I do you for?” were, I’m afraid, the first words the bereaved husband said to me when I joined him. For a moment I had a feeling that this was where I came in: his tone was exactly the same as the night before.
“A martini,” I said, reliving the earlier time. I half expected to see his wife examining art books on the table opposite but tonight her absence was more noticeable than her presence had been the evening before. He poured me one with a steady hand. “I want to thank you,” he said in a low voice,” for handling the press.”
“I was glad to.”
“I’m afraid I wasn’t in any shape to talk to them. Were they pretty bad?”
I wondered what he meant by that, what he wanted to know. I shook my head. “Just routine questions.”
“I hope there wasn’t any talk of … of suicide.” He looked at me sharply.
“No, it wasn’t mentioned. They accepted the fact it was an accident.” I paused: then I decided to let him in on Miss Lung’s dereliction.
He nodded grimly when I told him what she’d said to the police. “I already know,” he said quietly. “They asked me about it and I told them I sincerely doubted Mildred had any intention of killing herself. It’s not a very sensible way, is it? Drowning in front of a half-dozen people, several of whom are good swimmers.” I was surprised at his coolness. If he was upset by her death, he certainly didn’t show it. A little chilled, I joined the others by the fireplace.
Dinner was not gala. Because Brexton was with us we didn’t know quite what to talk about. Everybody was thinking about the same thing yet it would’ve been bad form to talk about Mildred in front of her husband; he of course was the most relaxed of the lot.