The Swimming Pool

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  I suppose the local police were pretty busy at that time of year, and the town was understaffed anyhow. Anyway, it was two state troopers who came back that afternoon. They stayed around the pool, and they seemed to be looking for something on the ground. At least they went over it inch by inch. Whether they found what they were looking for I did not know, and except for a couple of reporters, who had learned Judith was staying with us and hung around hoping to get a picture of her, the afternoon was quiet.

  O’Brien’s car, which he left out in all weathers, was missing, so I gathered he was off on some business of his own. I learned later that the chief and the state police were not only canvassing the village and surrounding countryside, but were getting in touch by telephone with the crew of the train from which, according to Ed Brown, she might possibly have come.

  As it developed the conductor of the train was pretty sure he had seen her. He remembered her hat. But as it was a local train from up the river, he had no idea where she had taken it. A walking party from the city had pretty well filled it. Also his wife was about to have a baby, and I suppose his mind was not exactly on his job.

  Phil had a case in court that day, so I could not get in touch with him. But by six o’clock the police were about where they had started. Even the bleached hair was no help. Our local beauty people said it was probably a professional job, and done not too long before. Perhaps a month ago, or less.

  I was relieved to see that Judith had taken her suitcase back into her room. Evidently she had decided to stay, for a time at least, and when I met Phil that evening—Bill had rattled off to see a girl, named Janey, having learned her family had arrived for the summer—I told him of my talk with her.

  “So she thinks it was murder,” he said thoughtfully. “Anybody said that to you? When I left they’d about decided it was accidental. If she knows anything she should tell it.”

  But when I told him of her threat to kill herself if she had to see the police, he was annoyed.

  “She’s still dramatizing herself!” he said. “Don’t let her scare you, Lois. She’s too fond of herself for that.” Then he saw my face. “All right, all right. Maybe she is in trouble, but what? She played around with a pretty wild crowd, but according to the papers they’re all still healthy enough. Although God knows why, the drinks they drink and the hours they keep.”

  “Judith never drank a lot,” I protested.

  “There are other vices than liquor, my innocent. Drugs and adultery, for example. Have you any idea if she takes drugs, Lois? It might account for a lot of things.”

  But somehow I did not think so. There was a curious sort of rationality about what appeared to be her vagaries. She was afraid of somebody or something, and she took what steps she could to protect herself. Grant that, and much of it fell into line. As to the adultery Phil mentioned, Ridge himself had apparently cleared her of that.

  We had our after-dinner coffee on the big front porch that night. Hot as it was, nobody thought of using the pool, but Phil looked tired and I was sorry for him.

  “Everything passes, Phil,” I said. “This will go, too. Judith’s going abroad as soon as she can get a ship. As to this dead woman, none of us know her, not even Jude. It can’t mean real trouble with the police.”

  He only shrugged, but I had apparently reminded him of something.

  “Speaking of police,” he said, “I saw your tenant in town today. He was going into police headquarters at Centre Street. What is he, anyhow? Or do you know? He’s a pretty close-mouthed customer about himself.”

  I suppose I colored for he laughed.

  “Him and his girls,” he jeered. “If ever I saw a cop, our Irish friend is one. It stands out all over him. Maybe he did go to college. Maybe he’s spent four years in the army. Maybe he’s off the force now. But I wouldn’t be too damned sure even of that.”

  “He’s not on police business here,” I said hotly. “He’s been in the army and he’s tired. You know all that. And if he wants to see his old friends certainly that’s his business.”

  “Once a cop, always a cop,” Phil retorted. “And if he thinks those specs fool me he’s gone in the head. Only what’s he doing here? Up to now we’ve been a pretty law-abiding crowd. Think he’s keeping an eye on Judith?”

  “Why should he?” I said. Nevertheless, I was more than a little troubled. He had had a purpose in getting the dead woman’s bag out of the pool, and he had taken something from it before he handed it to me; something he did not want the local authorities to know about, and which I did not doubt he had taken to police headquarters in the city that day.

  Perhaps Judith was right and it was murder, after all. There were other things, too. What had the state police been searching for on the grass by the pool that day? Whatever it was, did he have it, as well as that wadded-up and soaking wet roll of newsprint? And did he know who the woman was? Had she been the one I had seen at his door only a few days before?

  It was almost dark when I heard his car come in. The girls had apparently gone supperless to roost, and he did not disturb them. By that time I was practically ready to go down and denounce him, for being in Reno not by chance but by design, for picking me up on the train and inducing me to talk, and for concealing information from the local men.

  I did not, of course. Judith came downstairs, saying her room was too hot to stay in, and she was barely settled with us on the porch when Chief Fowler arrived. He mounted the steps and took off his cap.

  “Evening, folks,” he said. “Warm night, isn’t it?”

  Phil asked him to sit down and offered him a whisky and soda. He refused, however.

  “It’s still working-hours for me,” he said. “Looks as though we’ve got real trouble on our hands. The boy’s not here, is he?”

  “Bill? No, he’s out somewhere,” I said. “Why? Do you want him?”

  “Only because he found the body. You see, this woman—the deceased—has a bad cut on the back of her head. No fracture but, well, maybe she was knocked out and then dropped in the water. In that case it’s murder.”

  “Sorry to hear it,” Phil said, “but since none of us knew her—”

  The chief coughed.

  “Well, as a matter of fact, that’s why I’m here,” he said. “I know none of you recognized her this morning. But she looks better now. I’d like you all to see her. Nothing to worry anybody. Just peaceful and quiet.” Which last I thought was at least supererogatory. “Ten o’clock too early? Inquest’s at eleven.”

  “I suppose not,” I said. “Who is she, Chief? Somebody from around here?”

  “Not if Ed Brown’s story’s true. Only it beats me why a woman would drive five miles in a taxi, get out and send it away, and then fall or get pushed into that pool of yours. It doesn’t make sense. What about this fellow you rent the cottage to? Know anything about him?”

  Nobody had any decided opinions about O’Brien, except that he seemed like a nice person, and at last, after saying that both Bill and myself would be wanted to attend the inquest the next morning, he went away. Not far, however; I heard his car stop at the cottage, and it was some time before it drove away.

  I stayed on the porch when the others had gone. The fact that I was wanted at the inquest seemed definitely sinister to me. After all, I had not found the body, but I had had the bag. It worried me considerably, and after the chief had left the cottage I walked down toward it. I did not like passing the pool. The memory of the dead woman in it was too recent. But the window of O’Brien’s sitting-room was open, and it gave me courage to go on.

  I stopped at the window and glanced inside. O’Brien was sitting in the big chair by the lamp, but he was not catching up with any reading. He was not wearing his spectacles, either. He had two long strips of stiff transparent cellophane in his hands, and he was busy binding them together with what looked like Scotch tape. What seemed like a press clipping was between them, and in the lamplight his face was so grim and intent that when I spoke he practically
leaped to his feet.

  “Oh, it’s you!” he said. “What do you mean, scaring a guy out of his wits! The door’s not locked. How about using it?”

  I heard him open a drawer of the table and slam it shut, and when he let me in whatever he had been working on was out of sight.

  “I wasn’t spying on you,” I said. “But if that’s the clipping you took out of that woman’s bag, I imagine Fowler would be interested in it.”

  “It wouldn’t have meant a thing to him. And I wish to God, Lois, that you’d keep your pretty nose out of what doesn’t concern you.”

  It was the first time he had called me that, but he was too irritated to notice it.

  “I have to be interested,” I said. “I have to testify at the inquest tomorrow. What am I to say about the bag? That you took something out of it?”

  He flushed. I think for a minute he wanted to throttle me. Then with a jerk he opened the table drawer and pulled out the clipping in its cellophane covers.

  “All right,” he said. “So I think a clipping twenty years old is worth preserving. And that it wouldn’t mean a damn thing to Fowler or the medical examiner, either. It does happen to be my affair.”

  “I see,” I said. “So Phil’s right, after all.”

  “Right about what?”

  “He says once a cop, always a cop. And he believes you’re here on police business. That you came here to watch us, or maybe Judith. That’s true, isn’t it?”

  “I haven’t made any particular secret about that part of it, have I? Only let’s play it differently. Let’s say I think your sister may need protection. In fact, I’m damned sure she does.”

  But I was still indignant.

  “It was all neatly arranged, wasn’t it?” I said. “The pickup on the train, the renting of this place, the whole bag of tricks. Even that woman in the pool! You recognized her, didn’t you? I think she was here the other day to see you, but you were out.”

  “Say that again!”

  He was so astonished that I knew he was not acting.

  “She was here?”

  “I think it was her,” I said, ungrammatically. “At least the hat looks the same, and she’s about the same size.”

  “So that’s it,” he said, and seemed to be thinking over something. Clearly it bothered him. Then abruptly he flung the cellophane arrangement on the table.

  “Maybe you’d better read that,” he said. “You’ll understand a few things. If that woman is who I think she is, I’ve been hunting her for twenty years.”

  I picked the thing up. It was neatly done, an ancient yellow strip of newsprint, carefully placed between two sheets of transparent material. I glanced at the date. It was December 10, 1929, and it had to do with the murder of a girl named Mollie Preston in the old slums down by the East River. According to the paper, she had been strangled to death after a quarrel with a youth who had been seen with her a number of times, and he was being held for the murder.

  I was completely bewildered as I put it down.

  “This hasn’t anything to do with us,” I said. “I don’t understand.”

  “No,” he said. “How old were you then? Seven or so, weren’t you? It’s ancient history, but the woman today was a witness in that case. And she’d kept this clipping in her bag. Why? What did it mean to her? And why did she bring it here with her? If I knew that, I would know why she was killed.”

  “Killed! You think she was murdered?”

  “I do,” he said grimly. “Knocked out and then pushed into the pool. This man your maid Jennie saw—has she any description of him?”

  “None at all. She was paralyzed with fright.”

  He sat down and picking up his pipe proceeded to fill and light it.

  “If you have time I’d like to tell you a few things, Lois. But I’m going to ask you something first. Why do you think your sister fainted this morning, at the pool?”

  “It wasn’t a pretty sight.”

  “You don’t think she recognized her?”

  “I don’t know,” I said uncertainly. “Of course, it’s possible. I don’t think it’s likely.”

  “All right. Maybe she did. Maybe she didn’t. But let’s think back to that year of 1929. For most of it the country was riding high, wide, and handsome. Everybody was getting rich. This property of yours was still a showplace. So were a lot of big estates. This dead woman may have been employed around here, or even at The Birches itself. But I doubt it.”

  “I wouldn’t remember her if she was,” I said. “What happened about the Preston murder?”

  “The boy was found guilty,” he said. “Better forget it. Just a dirty miserable slice of life in a tenement. Girl probably a prostitute, boy maybe a little better, but not much. What would it have to do with you, the spoiled darling of a wealthy family?”

  That was when I laughed, remembering the ugly brat I had been, remembering the gay crowds around the pool in the summer who never saw me, remembering—but this only faintly—Anne’s wedding at The Birches, the marquee with its wooden floor for dancing, and Judith one of the bridesmaids. Remembering Mother in pale taffeta with a big hat and plumes and Father fussing about his morning coat. And still nobody noticing me. But he was right in one way. Riding high we certainly had been, when I was too young even for bands on my teeth.

  “You’re way before my time,” I told him. “I was only seven in 1929 and Judith hadn’t even come out. She always had a lot of boys and girls around, but they were the boarding-school-prep-school sort, with a great deal of excitement when a college man showed up.”

  “Just the same,” he persisted, “that woman—her name was Kate Henry when I knew her—had a reason for being here. She didn’t come near this cottage last night. I know that. Then who else? Could it have been your sister?”

  I felt a small shiver up and down my spine, remembering as I did the creaking of the stairs the night before. He saw my face and nodded.

  “All right,” he said. “Let’s forget it. Somewhere I think Conan Doyle says it’s important in any case to reason backward. Have you talked to Mrs. Chandler?”

  “Yes. She says she never saw the woman before, and I think she’s telling the truth. But she was really terrified today. She wanted to get out of the country. She was packed this afternoon, but I talked her out of it.”

  “Where was she going?”

  “Anywhere a ship would take her, I imagine.”

  He was thoughtful.

  “It wouldn’t be such a bad idea, at that,” he said. “But if she makes a move to leave I want to know it, Lois.”

  He took me up the drive that night. It was still hot, but it had started to rain, a thin summer drizzle which was utterly depressing. He said very little on the way, and I felt that he knew more than he had told me, but less than he liked. Only at the foot of the porch steps he stopped, and with any other man I might have thought he meant to kiss me. After all, I had had more experience than I had intimated to Anne. But not O’Brien. He had to stand there and make what amounted to a speech.

  “Every now and then,” he said, “even a smart cop can be wrong. I’m beginning to think I’ve laid an egg here, and it’s not one of the girls’. I’m going to ask you a favor,” he added. “When you’re called at the inquest tomorrow keep me out of it, will you? It may not come up at all, but if it does it’s all right to say I found the bag, but don’t say I opened it. It may be damned important.”

  Which, one way and another, was a poor preparation for a good night’s sleep.

  Chapter 11

  I CANNOT HONESTLY SAY that the dead woman worried me greatly that night. After all, I did not know her. Whether she was murdered or merely fell into the pool and drowned seemed to have no relation to any of us. But I was worried about Judith. Her reaction to the situation seemed ridiculously exaggerated, if she had not known Kate Henry, which O’Brien said was her name. Also the mere idea that she had slipped out of the house and gone to the pool in the middle of the night was sufficiently out
of character to amount to absurdity.

  At eleven o’clock the telephone rang in the lower hall, and I slipped on an old bathrobe and went down to answer it. It was Ridge, and he sounded annoyed.

  “You seem to have the faculty out there of getting into the papers,” he said. “What’s all this about a woman drowning in the pool?”

  “Well, she did. That’s about all I know.”

  “Who was she? Any identification yet?”

  I thought quickly.

  “I don’t believe so, Ridge. She had no cards or automobile driver’s permit on her. I suppose it’s only a matter of time.”

  “How’s Judith taking it?”

  “She was shocked, as we all were. The police think it may have been murder, that someone hit her on the head and then threw her in the pool. I don’t suppose that’s in the papers yet. It may come out at the inquest tomorrow.”

  “More likely she stumbled and fell in. I always said that place was a deathtrap.”

  I went back to bed and tried to think back to the fall of 1929. The crash had come, although Mother refused to recognize it. Phil once said she maintained she had lived through at least three of them, and nothing serious had ever happened. I had a vague recollection of the last dinner party she gave the night Father killed himself; of sitting on the stairs in my night clothes, watching the men give their arms to the women, the chattering, beautifully dressed procession moving toward the dining-room, and—although I did not see him—Father slipping out to his downtown office when the men were closeted with cigars and liquors, and using the gun no one knew he had.

  I felt a deep wave of pity for him. He had been gentle and kind, a quiet undramatic man who loved his children and his home. Why had he done it? Not because he had lost his money. I did not believe money had ever been important, to him, and other men had weathered the storm.

  One thing I did remember. Mother had not stayed to see the city house dismantled. She had taken Judith and fled to Arizona not long after the funeral. She made the excuse of Judith’s cough, but I felt now that she could not bear the loss of the lares and penates that were so important to her. She had protested over the sale, and I had trailed her around as, red eyed and shaken, she had pasted labels on the things that were to go to The Birches.