The Man Who Loved His Wife

by Vera Caspary

  12

  THE FASCINATION OF MYSTERIOUS DEATH VARIES with the size of the victim’s income. In slums people barely turn their heads to look at the tenement where a brutal slaying took place, while in the neighborhood of expensive houses they throng to stare at the walls and roof of what newspapers call “the murder mansion.” Many cars ascended the hill, turned at the dead end, and drove down again. Their occupants saw a garden, a wall, a house, curtained windows, closed doors, but enjoyed, no doubt, the same illusory thrills as those tourists who travel thousands of miles to look at houses in which movie stars once lived. Only one visitor was admitted. Ralph Julian was greeted like a star at the stage door. “Go right in, Doctor.” He belonged to the drama, his name had been in the papers.

  He brought an arrangement of flowers, which he held awkwardly while he greeted Elaine. Roses, daisies, asters, and chrysanthemums became a barrier between them. Ralph greeted her with restraint. Over his hasty lunch he had read of the latest developments in the mystery death of the wealthy recluse. From unnamed sources reporters had learned that new and conclusive evidence had been discovered by the Sergeant Curtis Knight of the Homicide Squad. The head of that department had expressed the belief that the mystery would be solved within twenty-four hours.

  Several other pictures of Elaine had been dug up. One was the advertisement Ralph had found in an old magazine and brought to show her the day they became lovers. Her white, filmy dress and her hair were tossed gracefully by a breeze and she carried a basket of daisies. Another picture, blown up large, made her an adventuress with hair piled high, gems in her ears, black gloves above her elbows. Who was she? Over a barrier of flowers Ralph looked at her and found himself wavering. He could not believe in the cunning bitch whose female grace disguised a soul of blackest evil, but she was surely not the modest young housewife he had discovered on her knees, uprooting irises.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t come over and see you last night. I meant to but I was held up”—he decided not to alarm her by speaking of that private and shocking conference with a man close to the Chief of Police, and ended up with the doctor’s infallible excuse—“by an emergency.”

  “Of course.” She understood about doctors. “Can I give you anything? Coffee? A cold drink?”

  They were alone in the house. Don and Cindy, she said, had gone to the undertaker’s to discuss arrangements for the funeral. Fletcher’s body had been released, “borrowed” household articles brought back.

  “Nothing was discovered. They didn’t find anything that explains anything.” She sank down limply on the cushions that had been restored to the couch. All the starch had gone out of her.

  It was the heat, she said, that lifeless dry heat that destroyed her. She could barely move or think, and nothing mattered. Ralph took her pulse, measured heartbeat and blood pressure. When she held out her hands, there were tremors. “Delayed shock,” he said. A sudden death was enough to unsettle the healthiest woman and she had, in addition, to endure the nasty business of investigation. Most girls would have gone to pieces. Elaine had changed in other ways. All the lightness and mobility had gone out of her. Ralph could not tell whether the lassitude was caused by sorrow, fear, or caution. Contemptuous as he was of the opinions he had heard and read, he could not help being affected. Most of all he was scornful of himself for the wavering. As though questioning an invalid, he asked, with forced cheeriness, “Will it upset you if Sergeant Knight comes to question you again?”

  Quickly, almost too quickly, she came out of her trance. “Is he coming? How do you know?”

  “Since they discovered nothing from the autopsy, they’ll certainly go on with the investigation.”

  “It’s become such a public thing,” Elaine said.

  From the street came the rumble of the sightseers’ cars. Elaine got up and walked about the room as if she were in search of something, a voice, an answer, tranquility. Bare-legged and bare-armed in the short dress, she looked like a frightened waif.

  “Don begged me not to read the newspapers. He said they’d upset me.”

  Ralph pushed aside the curtain. The plants in the garden had been sprayed that day and they gave off a sweetly poisonous odor. “They’ll say anything to get sensational headlines. Didn’t I tell you yesterday that it’s customary to cast suspicion on the widow?”

  “Don said something else this morning.” She strained to keep her tone light. “He said there’s no proof of innocence.” The bluff failed. She was sodden with fear.

  “I wouldn’t pay too much attention to Don if I were you.”

  “He’s been awfully kind. I don’t know how I’d have got along without him.”

  “He shouldn’t have said that to you,” Ralph had become harsh. “You’ve got nothing to be afraid of.”

  “Haven’t I?” She steadied herself against the arm of a chair. “All that questioning and poking about in our affairs. Every little moment of our lives.” She beat at the upholstery. “There are lots of things about my life with Fletcher that I don’t care to discuss with the police. Or anybody else.” She raised her hand against the chair again, but let it fall like an unbearable weight. “Sometimes, quite often lately, I’d dream about his death.” She waited for a shocked response.

  “A common enough dream.”

  “Not night dreams, a daydream. I thought about Fletcher dying. Although I suppose,” she left the support of the chair, “it isn’t too extraordinary to think about your future when you live with someone who expects to die.”

  “You don’t have to tell the police about your dreams.”

  “Do you think people give themselves away without consciously wanting to?”

  “I wouldn’t worry too much about it. They’re cops, not psychoanalysts.”

  “I loved him. Dearly.” She tried to recapture the sense of love, tried to see Fletcher here, now, in this room. He had never been able to resist touching her when she passed; even when she was rushing about at her chores, he would reach out and pinch her gently, stroke her bare arm or cup his big hand over one of her breasts. Had she honestly longed for freedom? “It disturbs me, remembering. I feel . . . unfaithful.”

  Her flesh, so given to blushes, grew rosy. The very word, unfaithful, gave life to another memory. Vitality returned to her unexpectedly, that sense and memory were aroused in Ralph. Both drew back. Such heat and challenge were unfitting, uncomfortable, and perverse. The moment was wrong. She and Ralph dared not look at each other. They became interested in furniture, concerned with lamps, aware of the pattern of the carpet, drawn by a bloated silver dish like a giant egg on legs, an absurd antique sent by one of Fletcher’s business associates when he married Elaine.

  Silence was pricked by small confusions. They listened to the birds beyond drawn curtains, to tires whining at the turn of the road, the throbbing of the refrigerator, the beating of their hearts. Elaine had come alive, Ralph was unfrozen. No climax had occurred, no communion of flesh, but both were forced to recognize heat and immediacy. And these fools allowed their eyes to meet and share the moment. They could think of nothing to say. Ralph did not want to think of her impossible situation, Elaine could not go on talking about shame and fear. The walls bore down upon them, the clock, the birds, the refrigerator, they asserted their right to make themselves heard. Backing away slowly, Ralph and Elaine created distance, rejected feeling, tried to tell themselves the moment had been illusion. There remained the bitter flavor of guilt.

  Don and Cindy burst in, full of news. The funeral was to be tomorrow, late in the afternoon, so that the first Mrs. Strode could get there comfortably. It was to be strictly private, with guards to keep out strangers and busybodies, but dignified so that their friends could honor Cindy’s father. They had chosen a coffin of solid bronze.

  “It’s the least we can do for Daddy.”

  “We hope it’s all right with you, Elaine,” added Don with the pompous gravity of the man of the family.

  The doorbell rang. “I hope I’m not di
sturbing anyone,” said Sergeant Knight, “but I happen to have a few more questions to ask Mrs. Strode if I may.” He bobbed his head in a gesture of courtesy. “I’d like all of you to stay here, if you will. It’ll expedite matters to have everyone present.” He used the melting tones of an actor who creates emphasis by understatement. “You, too, Doctor.”

  “Please do,” Elaine whispered.

  The intimacy was not lost on Knight.

  They went into the den, the coolest room in the house. Fletcher had put in an air conditioner of the latest and most expensive kind, advertised as silent. Its muted roar never ceased. Had this been his home, Sergeant Knight could not have assumed the role of host with greater urbanity. All tact and gentleness, “I think you’ll be comfortable here, Mrs. Strode,” he said and pulled out Fletcher’s big leather chair, pushed up the ottoman, urged her to stretch out and relax. Rebelling, Elaine obeyed. She distrusted him implicitly.

  In a straight chair by the door sat a stalwart young man who had come with Knight. This Mr. Corbin had a set of teeth that gleamed like costume jewelry. He took notes swiftly with his left hand, and paused only to wipe sweat from his face with a crumpled handkerchief. From time to time Knight directed a meaningful glance toward Corbin. These signals seemed no more than theatrical effect since they seldom occurred when anything important was discussed. The atmosphere was somber and contrived, thickened by smoke from Cindy’s endless chain of cigarettes which Don and Knight, in endless competition, hurried to light.

  Knight had brought a briefcase filled with pertinent information, copies of laboratory reports, notes on the conversations between Detectives Redding and Juarez with the family of Fletcher Strode immediately after the death was reported; his treasured copy of the diary; and transcripts of notes concerning his conversation with the family, with Dr. Ralph Julian, and with Dorine Henshaw, the domestic who had discovered the secret hoard of sleeping pills in Fletcher’s boot. In a formal opening speech Knight said that he would not bore them with these reports since the important facts were known to all. Immediately afterward he stated these facts in his own words and full detail. The air conditioner roared as if a sleeping lion were held captive behind the grill.

  The coroner’s inquest, Knight informed them, would take place the following Monday at ten a.m. He believed the means of death would be known to them all at that time, and he hoped, for the sake of all present, that suicide could be proved. As Dr. Julian had clearly stated, death could easily be accomplished by a man in Mr. Strode’s physical condition by closing the aperture in his neck with a small object. No such object had been discovered. “Nor do we believe it possible that a man could remove a cork, a wadded handkerchief, tissue or some similar article at the moment of death. But there are other ways . . .” He paused to look into each of their faces and, when his glance was met, to offer a smile of calculated sincerity.

  Cindy started to speak, but Don shook his head at her. “I wish, Donnie,” she murmured, “you wouldn’t always do that to me.”

  “Do what, love?”

  “Whenever I start to say something . . .” She stopped in confusion because Don looked at her so severely that she felt a cold shiver pass through her body.

  “What was it you wished to say, Mrs. Hustings?”

  She dared not look at Don. He was angry and cautious about many things, which he had not fully explained. “I don’t remember,” she said.

  Probably she had meant to deny her father’s suicide again, thought Ralph, and wondered if Knight had taken notice of the hysteria and frequency of these protests.

  Knight went on with his speech. “There are other ways to suffocate a man in deep, drug-induced sleep. If one had a strong enough will, the human hand could be held there until the victim passed away.” He held his hand over his throat to illustrate the act. “Or a blanket or pillow, the classical method used in Shakespeare’s Othello.” He enjoyed his phrasing and looked obliquely at Elaine.

  “Did my pillows and sheets prove anything, Sergeant Knight?” Her voice had too keen an edge.

  “I don’t mean to distress you, Mrs. Strode. In these unhappy hours you’ve borne yourself extremely well. So let’s try and keep our tempers now.” This was in a confidential whisper, a delicate rebuke that all of them could hear. “Please remember that I don’t enjoy this any more than you. But unfortunately, one must do one’s job in this world.” After a sigh that deplored cruel necessity, Knight proceeded with gusto to repeat questions and arguments and to consult his notes as though he did not know precisely what they told. Using a low register that strained everyone’s hearing, he referred to contradictions in Elaine’s actions and answers. His questions were framed for simple yes and no replies. “Didn’t you tell Mr. Hustings last week, on Thursday, four days before your husband’s death, that you knew he contemplated suicide?”

  “Must we go over all of this again? I told you everything already,” she reminded him fretfully.

  “Can you deny that after your husband’s death you said you felt guilty?”

  Boredom ended. They all sat up straight or slid forward in their chairs.

  “Did you?” demanded Ralph.

  Elaine lay back against the leather cushions, regarded the long tanned legs stretched out upon the ottoman. “Did I?” Her voice sounded feathery, careless, without substance.

  “You did.” Knight shuffled his papers again.

  “Perhaps I did.” Elaine kept them waiting while she thought about it. “I don’t remember, but how can one remember every word one’s ever said?”

  Ralph leaped up. “So what?” he cried. “Suppose she did say she felt guilty? A person can feel guilty about picking his nose.”

  Cindy’s hand dropped. She looked wildly around for a cigarette.

  “I’m afraid, Doctor, this did concern her husband’s death. She said it to Mr. Hustings while”—Knight had leaped like a ballet dancer to offer Cindy his cigarette case and his back was toward Elaine as he tossed the tidbit—“she was changing her husband’s bed linen at three o’clock in the morning.”

  Don said, “I hope you’re not vexed at me, love. Sergeant Knight asked me a lot of questions and I simply told him what you told me.”

  “I’m not angry at all,” Elaine replied with acid sweetness, “but I am wondering what this is all about. You told us you weren’t going to repeat what we all know, Sergeant Knight, and you’ve spent an hour doing nothing but that. Is it a trick of some sort? Are you trying to trap one of us into saying something that might be useful to you?”

  Ralph shot her a look of warning. In her situation it was injudicious to offend the detective. Knight’s vanity was obvious. Ordinarily Elaine would have been sensitive to the nature of the man, shown appreciation of his little tricks of charm. Ralph could understand her not liking Knight, but knew it unwise of her to bait him in this way.

  All of Knight’s attention was given to his right thumbnail. He studied it as scrupulously as if he were doing research on cuticles. “Perhaps one of you is waiting,” he bent closer over his thumb, “to be trapped. Deviously.”

  A nervous smile crossed Elaine’s face. She had become rigid. Everyone, even Cindy, had become aware of the extraordinary tension. To those who had read the diary the word was potent; devious. Fletcher had learned it from Elaine and used it often. My wife is a devious creature. The word was ammunition and Knight had fired it, deviously.

  WHEN SHE HAD given him the diary, Elaine said she had not read what her husband had written. Knight had not believed her. But now that he knew the contents, he conceded (as he had in that dreary session in District Attorney Hanley’s office) that Mrs. Strode had been truthful about it. No sane woman, however innocent, would have allowed that document to fall into the hands of the police. Knight had read and reread, memorized and indexed important entries. The fact that Elaine knew nothing about the fears and prophecies recorded by her late husband was helpful to Knight. He intended to keep secret the source of his information until its exposure coul
d profit him.

  “I’d like to remind you of something, Mrs. Strode. A certain conversation with your husband.”

  The telephone interrupted. Don answered and summoned Ralph. The exchange gave him the telephone number of an anxious patient. The call took a long time. Ralph’s absence pleased Knight. In asking Ralph to stay, he had in mind the possibility of catching him and Elaine in some revealing lie or inconsistency, but he found the doctor too alert to reveal himself or to allow indiscretion.

  Don had gone to the bar. “How about something cool, sir? You won’t think we’re trying to suborn the police if we offer you a fruit juice?”

  “I see,” said Knight with an appreciative wink, “that you remember my addiction.”

  Corbin looked wistfully at the Bourbon poured out for Cindy and Don, but had to content himself with a ginger ale. Elaine sipped ice water.

  Knight did not wait for Ralph to come back, but went on glibly, “You had a conversation with your husband about the poisons in the garden shed.” He waited. At last his patience was gone and he said sharply, “Didn’t you?”

  She answered like someone who had been napping. “Didn’t I what?”

  Knight repeated the question with emphatic pauses between words. He saw her hesitancy as a stall to keep him waiting while she formulated an evasive answer.

  Elaine was honestly confused. “Poisons in the garden shed?” she repeated like a student who ponders a question too difficult for a prompt answer.

  “Don’t you recall the conversation?”

  She had kicked off her high-heeled slippers, which she left on the ottoman as she ran across the room in bare feet. “I know I didn’t like having all those Danger and Beware bottles in the shed. When you live with someone like he was, my husband, you’re naturally,” she passed a limp hand across her forehead, “frightened. Who wouldn’t be?”