by Vera Caspary
“What does that mean, someone like your husband?”
“I was afraid he . . . that is, I knew . . . he thought about committing suicide.”
“And you were so frightened that you called these poisons to his attention?”
Elaine did not remember mentioning the poisons to Fletcher although she knew, definitively, that she had told the gardener to take them out of the shed. And he did. He kept them in his truck and only brought them out when he had to get rid of snails and slugs and aphids. “Did I talk about it to Fletcher?”
“Last June,” Knight said.
“How do you know?”
“Not long afterward you spoke to a girl on the long-distance phone. About being free. You said a girl ought to be ecstatically happy to have her freedom.”
“I remember that. It was Joyce Kilburn, she’d just got her divorce. I wanted to console her. But how—”
Knight cut in. “You thought a lot about being free again. You dreamed about being free and living in New York like you did before you met Mr. Strode.”
There was no denying this. She had already confessed guilt. Color jetted up from the richest, darkening face and neck. Her voice coarsened. “What are you trying to do, convict me for my dreams?” Whirling about, “Why don’t you say something, Don? You’re supposed to be a lawyer. I thought you wanted to help me. Has he any right to ask me these questions?”
Don raced to her side. “Easy now, sweet. It won’t help to lose our tempers. I’d have advised you if you’d been willing, but you said you wanted to tell the truth.”
“He’s right, Mrs. Strode. You offered cooperation to the fullest extent.” Knight’s amiable tone gave contrast to Elaine’s shrillness. “Please don’t be distressed if I ask a few more questions about your private life.”
Don tried to lead her to a chair. She brushed him off and ran out to the hall. At the telephone Ralph was telling a patient that laxatives were not the answer. She raced back into the room, saw Knight in Fletcher’s chair at Fletcher’s desk where Fletcher used to sit when he kept his accounts, considered his investments, paid his bills, and wrote in his diary.
Knight inclined his head.
“Fletcher wrote those things!” Belief gathered slowly. “About the poisons in the shed and what I told Joyce and all the crazy, trivial things that happen in a house?”
“I hardly think you’d consider them crazy and trivial if you had read your husband’s diary.”
“He didn’t think I meant to poison him?”
“No such accusation has been made, Mrs. Strode.”
“Why did he put such things into his diary?”
“You ought to know better than anyone else.”
“It’s a trick,” she said, “I don’t believe a word,” but knew, while she denied it, that there could be no other source of information so crazy, so trivial, and so true. “I’d like to see the diary.”
“Sorry, Mrs. Strode, I am not at liberty to show it to you.”
“Why not?”
“You gave it to me of your own free will.”
“You asked if I’d read it and I said I hadn’t. Now I want to. I have a right to know what my husband wrote about me.”
A soldier does not yield his gun so readily. The diary was more than a weapon to Knight; it was also his shield, and more, a walking stick to help him up the steep climb, a magic wand to waft him to a place among the mighty. “I’m afraid I can’t give it to you right now.”
“Is that right, Don? Is it legal for him to keep it from me?”
“I’m not sure of the law in this state. It’s not a matter that comes up every day,” Don answered smoothly, “but for the moment, let’s not make an issue of it. It’s as much to your advantage as anyone else’s to get this ugly mess cleaned up.”
“But why won’t he let me see it?” She had become fretful. Narrowed eyes, locked muscles, the darkness of her face destroyed her beauty. She had run her hands through her hair so that it was as wild as a witch’s. “It looks like a trick to persecute me.”
“Careful, dear,” Don murmured, “it can never be more than circumstantial evidence. You have no reason to be so agitated, sweet.”
“Please don’t blame me, Mrs. Strode. I’m only trying to understand the things your husband wrote in his diary.”
“But Fletcher wouldn’t have, he couldn’t believe”—she rubbed her hands and bent her head and moaned because she could not bear to voice the hideous thought—“such stuff. He loved me.”
“He thought you were trying to provoke him to suicide when you told him you’d taken a lover.”
Shock was intended. Knight allowed himself the luxury of a glance at his audience. Corbin bared his teeth at the juicy information that the drama had included adultery when only murder had been expected. Cindy’s chest and shoulders rose with every breath. An irrelevant stream of giggles escaped. Don tried to look grave. He dared not show pleasure in a statement that sent warm blood racing through his body and filled his head with visions of prosperity.
Elaine had regained a measure of calm. Anger remained, but at a lower temperature. Rigid, head high, she asked, “Is that what my husband wrote or your own interpretation, Sergeant Knight?”
“What was your reason for telling him about your lover?” Delicate inflection gave the word an obscene sound.
What reason? Like acute pain the scene returned. Elaine saw her husband stamping into her bedroom, his body bare and brown above the shorts, a bandanna tied about his neck. He had smelled and shone with sweat.
“He asked me.”
“Asked if you had a lover?” Knight kept the question hanging in the air until Elaine assented with a nod. “And you told him that you had?”
“What does that prove?” she demanded.
“Will you allow me to read what your husband wrote about that incident?” Of course she would; how could she disallow it? Knight riffled through pages, but only for effect. “Ah,” he breathed and began to read slowly and with emphasis like a student of elocution:
“Yesterday she hit me with the news she had a lover. How much can a man take? No matter what plans are in her head she ought to be loyal while I am still alive. Maybe she is too passionate to control herself—”
“You see,” squealed Cindy, “Mom knew, she always said a girl like that couldn’t behave decently.” Don commanded her to shut up, but she had to express superiority with another trill of proud laughter before she settled down to listen to Knight declaim:
“What a shock to a husband. I drove to the ocean and stood on those high rocks and looked down at the water and was tempted. Then a terrible thought came to my mind. I saw through her devious plan. She may not be brave enough to strike so she is trying to provoke me to do it myself. I refuse to make it easy for her.”
Elaine had gone back to the leather chair. Moaning softly, she sank onto the ottoman and covered her face with both hands.
“Sorry, Mrs. Strode, I didn’t hear what you said. Could you speak a bit louder, please?”
More to herself than to the others, “Poor Fletch, he was so sick,” she said. Her hands fell from her eyes. She raised her head and saw that Ralph had come into the room. Conflict tore her to bits. She thought of too many things at the same time; of the terrible agony which had driven Fletcher to these accusations, of the shame of the cuckold, and of the way it had all ended. At the same time she wondered how much of this Ralph had heard and how he must feel at having their affair exposed to this vulgar group, with Knight so righteous, Don so smug, with Cindy sniffling happily, and Corbin grinning so that each of his pearls glowed separately.
“It seems my husband kept a diary,” she tried to explain to Ralph calmly. “He had some sort of idea, a crazy obsession,” but she could not name the nature of it. “Sergeant Knight read some of it to us, but he won’t let me see it.”
Knight sensed accusation. “I’m very sorry.”
“Don says I haven’t the legal right to demand it.”
�
�I didn’t say that, dear.” To Ralph with one of his candid, boyish glances Don explained, “I told her I wasn’t familiar with the California law in regard to that special request.”
“Why can’t you show it to her, Sergeant Knight?”
Knight’s hand tightened on it as though the reproduced diary were an amulet. He beheld himself with it in court, envisioned the explosive effect of entries such as the one he had just read, saw his name and picture in the papers, considered the effect on his career of a front-page trial, foresaw the pleasure of his mother. Since he had first read Fletcher Strode’s prophecies, he had dwelt in a dream.
The head of the Homicide Department, Knight’s boss, had been skeptical about the diary. The Chief had been in agreement. The department’s head psychologist had been consulted. In the conference with Lowell Hanley, these three had argued with dark cynicism. The District Attorney had been inclined toward Knight’s viewpoint. No one realized more acutely than this ambitious man that the diary could be a publicity bombshell, but he was too experienced not to reckon that a bomb can explode in more than one direction. The District Attorney’s ambitions were of no lesser intensity than Knight’s, but on a higher level, and handled with subtler tactics. After a hot argument, it had been decided that Knight was to pursue the investigation, using the diary’s contents as a means of obtaining more solid evidence. Discretion had been commanded. Privately, Knight had been informed that Mr. Hanley was one hundred percent behind him and that his personal cooperation would be given freely at any hour of the day or night.
Knight’s answer showed both discretion and a tolerant spirit. “If you knew the full contents of the diary, Doctor, you wouldn’t want her to read it.”
“I know them.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“I’ve read the diary.”
“That’s impossible.” Knight’s urbanity showed a raveled edge. “You don’t mean to say that Mr. Strode allowed you to . . .”
“Dr. McIntosh asked my advice.”
Knight’s nod showed recognition of the name while Ralph explained to the others that McIntosh, an old schoolmate, was chief psychologist to the Police Department. “Since I knew Mr. Strode, he asked my opinion of the validity.”
“And what did you make of it?”
“Bullshit.”
Cindy gurgled.
“No apologies,” Ralph said.
“You’re honestly convinced of that?” fretted Knight.
“I have no doubts whatsoever.”
“Mr. Hanley was much impressed by the diary.”
“The diary, if valid, would serve our District Attorney well. In court and the newspapers,” Ralph said drily.
“One would expect a more considered opinion from you, Doctor.” Knight paused like a political speaker about to make a point. “It’s obvious that you’re prejudiced in favor of the lady, but I should think that your conclusions, as a man of science, would be more objective.”
“Objectively and scientifically, I think the diary from beginning to end is plain bullshit.”
“Doctor, there are ladies present.”
“I chose my words with the ladies in mind. To dispel fear,” he cast a veiled glance toward Elaine, and with a direct stare at Cindy, added, “and destroy any illusions they may cherish.”
“Please answer one question for me. Objectively. As a man of science.”
“I promise not to use dirty words.”
Knight let the levity pass. “What I want is your frank opinion as to the reason a man of Mr. Strode’s intelligence,” Knight raised his hand in warning against interruption, “and you surely won’t deny that Mr. Strode had considerable mentality to have reached a high point of financial success. Then why should a brilliant man think he could deceive us all, the police as well as those nearest and dearest, with statements he knew to be false? If they were false!”
“I doubt that he considered them false.”
“But, Doctor, you just said—”
“I said I didn’t believe the hogwash in that diary, but that doesn’t mean that the writer wasn’t convinced.”
“Which means, I take it, that you believe Mr. Strode was not sane?”
Cindy tried to speak, but Don prevented it.
“I think he had become more and more disturbed. If you read the diary carefully, you’ll notice a definite deterioration in his reasoning. I went over it carefully last night and looked through it again, superficially, this morning. It seems to me that the fantasies grew stronger and that he had come to believe them.”
“Nonsense.” Don was on his feet. “Shit, if you prefer the doctor’s language. I lived in the house with him all summer and if I ever saw a sane and strong-minded character, it was Fletcher Strode.”
“That’s for sure. My father was perfectly sane.”
“Let’s say he was sick. That’s the popular term now,” Ralph said. “A sick man who hated and distrusted himself and who’d lost the desire to go on living, but hadn’t the will to kill himself.”
“You’ve certainly changed your opinion.” Don aimed his forefinger at Ralph’s temple. “You were so sure it was suicide.”
“I’m still sure. I’ve done some reading since this happened, and find that the publications confirm my opinion. The suicide urge is common in laryngectomy patients. That diary was a symbol, a direct invitation to death by a man afraid to commit the final act.”
“Do you mean he wanted his wife to kill him?”
“Let’s say he wanted to think he wanted it.”
Knight stalked over to Elaine. “How do you feel about it? You knew him best. Do you believe he wanted you to kill him?”
“I don’t know,” she said in a flat voice.
“Don’t know!” Don had come to stand beside Knight. The three men surrounded the crouching figure. “You must certainly know what you told me so confidentially last week.”
Elaine answered with a quick dip of her head. Don spoke in the manner of a prosecuting attorney. “You told me very clearly that you were afraid he’d kill himself. Is that all you were afraid of?”
“I don’t understand you, Don.” Crouched on the ottoman in the classic pose of despair, she spoke without looking up at him.
“What don’t you understand? Have you forgotten telling me about some TV show you and he saw together? About a mercy killing? And the question he asked afterward?” Don spoke with the objectivity of a man sure of his facts. “The thought’s been on your mind ever since, hasn’t it?”
Elaine gave no sign of having heard. Even when he demanded, less objectively, “Can’t you answer the question, Elaine?” she remained silent. Don’s authoritative, prosecuting attorney voice had not reached her. “Lovable,” she heard in broken tones. Her hands protected a wound in her own neck; her eyes sought him where the other man sat at his desk. The diary had been a refuge, solace for the maimed ego, a substitute for the lost voice.
“You don’t deny it?”
Don had become querulous.
Knight sat still, fingertips pressed together, hands forming a steeple. Through experience he had learned that passion reveals more truth than the most thorough and ruthless interrogation. He had made no accusations, taken no action that could cause criticism of police tactics. He had only to sit back and let the Strode family do the job for him.
“She can’t deny anything. She killed my father.”
“Cindy, my dear,” admonished Don, “you have no right to make such an accusation. Nothing’s been proved, has it, sir?” With charming deference of a prep school boy trying to please a master, he strolled toward Knight. Although his wife was vindictive, Don Hustings showed decent objectivity. Pockets hid hands clenched as passionately as if they already protected the Strode fortune.
Suddenly he felt himself seized by the shoulder, whirled about, and made to confront Ralph Julian’s fury. There was no color in the lean face, no tremors in the hands that gripped his shoulders.
“What the hell is this all about? Do you
want to find Elaine guilty?”
Knight and Corbin leaped at them. “Easy, lad,” Knight said. Corbin seized Ralph from behind.
Ralph let go.
Don smiled sadly. “I’ve been trying to guard Elaine’s interests, sir. Sincerely.” Once again appealing to the headmaster, the boy showed respect. “We’re all interested in the same thing, aren’t we? To get at the truth.”
“Seems to me you and your wife are more interested in getting her hanged.”
“He’s the crazy one,” said Cindy with a hollow laugh.
“I resent that,” replied Don with dignity. “Though I do understand wanting to protect his own interests. Since you were mentioned in the diary as her lover.”
“Fletcher couldn’t have written that.” Elaine dared not look at Ralph. She had told him with conviction that Fletcher had not known the lover’s identity.
And Ralph said, “I must have missed the name.”
“Perhaps you overlooked an embarrassing item,” Don said, “but if you went over it twice, I don’t see how you could have missed the bit about the redheaded doctor. How many redheaded doctors does Elaine have?”
Elaine sprang to life, flaming. “You said you hadn’t read the diary, Don.”
“I did?”
“You know you did.” Fury flamed her cheeks, hardened her voice, caused every nerve to twitch. “When we gave Sergeant Knight the diary. You said you hadn’t read it. Didn’t he?” She ran over to accost Knight with her question.
“Let’s try to keep calm, Mrs. Strode.”
“I don’t seem to remember.” Don spoke in the lofty tone of a man who could not be bothered by the trivialities cherished by women.
Don had told Knight at lunch that he had not read the diary. Nothing was said of this. A slight pursing of the lips gave the only indication that Knight was aware of the falsehood.
“You lied. Why, Don? Why can’t you tell the truth about it?” Elaine’s questions were rhetorical, more the expression of scorn than a demand for reason. “You knew what the diary said and you told Sergeant Knight that it might be useful. It was you who told him that Fletcher kept a diary.”
“If I did,” Don fixed earnest, schoolboy eyes on Knight, “it doesn’t change anything. None of the facts are the least bit altered.”