by Gore Vidal
Worried, exasperated, I opened the third letter.
“Boom! Rufus Hollister. Another boom? Maybe not. Maybe so. Repeat, Rufus Hollister. Paper chase leads to him. Who’s got the papers?” The note was unsigned. It was printed in red pencil on a sheet of typewriter paper. The letters slanted oddly from left to right, as though someone had deliberately tried to disguise his handwriting. I sat down by the fire, stunned.
“What’s the matter, Peter?” asked Ellen, coming into view, “Camilla hurt your feelings?”
“Nothing’s the matter,” I said, folding the letter: I had decided, in a flash, to tell no one about it, not even Winters. If someone wanted to give me a lead I wasn’t the man to share it, “if it be a sin to covet honor” and all that.
“Well, I’m off, with Walter. We’re going to see the Senate in session … God knows why. We’ll pick you up after dinner tonight. I’ve told Mother a number of white lies to explain our absence.”
“What about Winters? Did you get his permission?”
“Didn’t you hear? He’s not going to be around at all today. Somebody called up from the police department and said he was busy. But he’ll be with us again tomorrow. Walter, get my coat, will you, like a dear? It’s in the hall closet.” And talking of this and that, she left, the obedient Walter knotted loosely around her neck.
I was about to go upstairs and get my own overcoat, when Mrs. Rhodes suddenly appeared from the dining room. It was her first visit to the drawing room since the reading of the will; she had kept hidden, since then, except for meals. I felt very sorry for her.
“Ah, Mr. Sargeant,” she smiled wanly. “Don’t get up.” She sat down opposite me. The fire burned merrily. The butler moved silently about the room; except for him, we were alone: our fellow suspects had all gone on about their business.
“I suspect this is more than you bargained for,” she said, almost apologetically. The old diamonds gleamed against her mourning.
“It’s been a shock,” I said … it was the phrase we all used to discuss what had happened.
“We must all bear it as best we can. I …” she paused as though uncertain whether or not she could go on; she was a most reserved lady, lacking in that camaraderie so many politicians’ wives assume. “I was not prepared for the will. I don’t understand how Lee could … have made it.” This was odd; she was not concerned at his having had an illegitimate child, only that he had allowed the world to know it.
“I don’t suppose he expected to … die so soon,” I said.
“Even so there was Ellen to think of, and his good name, his posterity … and me. Though I never expected to outlive him.” She played with her rings; then she looked up at me sharply, “Will you write about the will?”
I hadn’t expected a question so blunt; until now my dual role as suspect and journalist had not been referred to by anyone but Camilla even though all of them knew by now that I was covering the case for the Globe. “I suppose I’ll have to,” I said unhappily. I decided not to mention that I had already written about it in some detail, that my somewhat lurid version would be on the streets of New York in a few hours.
She nodded. “I realize you have a job too,” she said, charitably. I felt like a villain, living in her house and exposing her private life to the world, but it couldn’t be helped. If I didn’t do the dirty work someone else would. As a matter of fact others were doing it, their inaccurate reports delighting tabloid readers all over the country. She understood all this perfectly: she hadn’t spent a life in the limelight for nothing.
“And since you must write about these things, I think I should tell you that Camilla, though born out of wedlock, was, in a sense, legitimate. Her mother was my husband’s common-law wife … a well-kept secret, considering the publicness of our lives. When he went into politics he married me, leaving Camilla’s mother—leaving her pregnant as he learned later—only it was too late of course to do anything about that after we were married. Happily, the unfortunate woman, taking a sensible view of the whole business, got herself a husband as quickly as possible, an undertaker named Wentworth. She died a few years later and the story, we thought, was finished.”
“But didn’t Camilla know who her father was?”
“Not for many years. Wentworth suspected the truth, however; he approached my husband … now, what I am telling you is in absolute confidence: some of it you can use. I’ll tell you later what I want told to the public … Wentworth tried to blackmail my husband, in a cautious way. First, this favor; then, that favor. We sent his nephews to West Point. We got his brother-in-law a post office … the usual favors. Then his demands became unreasonable and my husband refused to fulfill them. Wentworth came to me and told me the story of Camilla which is how I learned the truth. He threatened to tell everyone, but by then Lee would not be budged; he was like a rock when his mind was made up. Wentworth told Camilla the truth and she left him, left his house and went to work; she supported herself until she married Roger.”
“Did Wentworth spread the word after that?”
“He did, but it was useless. Those things have a habit of backfiring, you know. Most of the newspapers back home were for Lee and they wouldn’t print Wentworth’s rumors, and since there was no proof of any sort, it was his word against Lee’s. In one of the campaigns the story of Camilla was used to smear us but the other party got nowhere with it. When one of our papers came to us and asked what they should do about these rumors, Lee said: ‘Print the truth.’ I think his stand won him the election.” She was very proud of that frightful husband of hers. In a way, I couldn’t blame her. He had been like a rock, very strong and proud.
“I want you,” she said, firmly, “to print the truth: that Camilla was his daughter by a common-law wife and that, considering the circumstances, he was in every way a good father, even to remembering her equally in his will with our daughter and with me.”
“I’ll do that,” I said humbly, hardly able to contain my excitement at this coup. So far no journalist had bothered to check the Senator’s early years.
“I will appreciate it,” she said gravely.
“Tell me,” I said, suddenly brave, “who killed the Senator?”
“If only I knew.” She looked bleakly into the fire. “I have no idea. I don’t dare think … it’s all so like a paper chase.”
2
The idea was outrageous, but who else? A paper chase. She was trying to give me a signal of some kind, a desperate attempt at communication because … because she was terrified … of the murderer? I wondered, though, why, if she had written me the note, she had not admitted it outright instead of referring so obliquely to it. A paper chase: that was exactly it. I was suddenly very tired. If only one person would stop playing his game long enough to tell the truth, I might be able to unravel the whole business to the delight of the Globe and the police. That she had written to me, I was sure. But for some reason she didn’t wish to be more explicit. Well, I would have to continue in the dark awhile longer. In any case, I was better off than I had been. I knew a good deal more about the Senator’s youthful indiscretions than anyone else and I had been warned about Rufus Hollister.
After my talk with Mrs. Rhodes, I put on my overcoat and left the house. The day was bright and cold and a sharp wet wind blew down Massachusetts Avenue, making my ears ache.
The plain-clothes man at the door looked at me gloomily as I went out, his nose nearly as red from the cold as his earmuffs. I saluted him airily and headed down the avenue as though I knew in which direction I was going.
Just as I was about to hail a taxi, a young man stepped from behind a tree and said, with a big smile, “I’m from the Global News-service and I wonder.…”
“I’m from the New York Globe,” I said solemnly. This brought him to a full stop. He was about to walk off. Then he changed his mind.
“How come you were inside there if you’re on the Globe? They haven’t let any reporters in since the old bastard was blown up.”
&
nbsp; I explained to him.
“Oh, I know about you,” he said. “You’re one of the suspects. The Senator’s public relations man.”
I said that I had been the latter, that I doubted if I was the former.
“Well, anyway, the big arrest is going to take place soon.” He sounded very confident.
“Is that so?”
“So we were tipped off … sometime in the next twenty-four hours Winters is going to arrest the murderer. That’s why I’m hanging around … deathwatch.”
“Did they tell you who he was going to arrest?” (I would rather say “whom” but my countrymen dislike such fine points of grammar.)
“Damned if I know. Pomeroy, I suppose. Say, I wonder if you could do me a favor. You see.…” I took care of him and his favor in a few well-chosen words. Then I caught a taxicab and rode down to the Senate Office Building.
This was my second visit to the Senator’s office; it was very unlike the first. Large wooden crates filled with excelsior were placed everywhere on the floor. Two gray little women were busy packing them with the contents of the filing cabinets. I asked for Mr. Hollister and was shown into the Senator’s old office. He was seated at the desk studying some documents. When I entered he looked up so suddenly that his glasses fell off.
“Ah,” he sounded relieved. He retrieved his glasses and waved me to a chair beside his own. “A sad business,” he said, patting the papers on the desk. “The effects,” he added. There was a long pause. “You wanted to see me?” he said at last.
I nodded. I was playing the game with great care. “I thought I’d drop by and see you while I was downtown … to say good-by, in a way.”
“Good-by?” The owl-eyes grew round.
“Yes, I expect I’ll be going back to New York tomorrow … and since there’ll probably be quite a bit of commotion tonight we might not have a chance to talk before then.”
“I’m afraid.…”
“They are going to make the arrest tonight.” I looked at him directly. His face did not change expression but his hands suddenly stopped their patting of the papers; he made two fists; the knuckles whitened. I watched everything.
“I assume you know whom they will arrest?”
“Don’t you?”
“I do not.”
“Pomeroy.” I wondered whether or not I had ruined the game; it was hard to tell.
He smiled suddenly, his cheeks rosy and dimpled. “Do they have all the evidence they need?”
“It would seem so.”
“I hope they do because they will be terribly embarrassed if they’re not able to make it stick. I’m a lawyer, you know, and a very thorough one, if I say so myself. I would never go into court without ultimate proof, no sirree, I wouldn’t. I hope that Lieutenant is not being rash.”
“You don’t think Pomeroy did it, do you?”
“I didn’t say that.” He spoke too quickly; then, more slowly, “I mean, it would be unfortunate if they were unprepared; the murderer might get away entirely, if that was the case.”
“And you wouldn’t like to see that?”
“Would you?” He was very bland. “You forget, Mr. Sargeant, that it is not pleasant for any of us to be suspected of murder. Even you are suspected, in theory at least. I am, certainly, and all the family is, too. None of us like it. We would all like to see the case done with, but if it isn’t taken care of properly then we are worse off than before. Frankly, something like this can do us all great harm, Mr. Sargeant.”
“I’m sure of that.” I sat back in my chair and looked at the bare patch on the wall over the mantelpiece where the cartoon had been. Then I fired my last salvo: “Where are those papers you took from the study the other night? The night you shoved me downstairs?”
Hollister gasped faintly; he adjusted his glasses as though steadying them after an earthquake. “Papers?”
“Yes, the ones you were looking for. I assume you found them.”
“I think your attempt at humor is not very successful, Mr. Sargeant.” His composure was beginning to return and my shock-treatment had, to all intents and purposes, failed. I looked at him coolly, however, and waited. “I did not take the papers,” he said, smiling. “I admit that I should have liked to but someone else got them.”
“You are sure of that?”
Hollister chuckled but his eyes were round and hard despite his smiling mouth. “Perfectly sure.” At that moment the telephone rang; he picked it up and talked to some newspaperman, very sharply, I thought, for someone in public life; but then his public life was over, at least as far as the Senate was concerned. “Wolves!” he groaned, hanging up.
“Closing in for the kill.”
“Closing in for what?”
“The arrest … tonight, I am told.”
Hollister shook his head gloomily. “Poor man. I can’t think why he did it; but then he has a most vindictive nature, and a terrible temper. He depended a great deal on the Senator’s backing in Washington. It was probably too much for him to bear, being turned down like that.”
“I have a hunch that there will be a good deal of singing, though, as the gangsters say.” I was beginning to talk out of the side of my mouth, the way private eyes are meant to talk. I caught myself in time: this was, as far as I could recall, the first time in my life I had used the word “singing” in its underworld sense.
Mr. Hollister looked properly bewildered. “I mean,” I said, “that in the course of the trial a lot of very dirty linen is going to be displayed. I mean, Mr. Hollister, that all your political dealings with the Senator will become known.” This was wild; I forged ahead in the dark. “The papers you wanted and which you say someone else got will be very embarrassing for all concerned.” I was proud of my emphatic vagueness; also of the effect I was making.
“What are you trying to tell me, Sargeant?” The soft-soap political manner was succeeded by an unsuspected brusqueness. He was near the end of the line.
“That Pomeroy is going to tear you to pieces.”
Hollister half-rose in his chair; before he could speak, the telephone rang again. He picked it up impatiently; then his manner changed. He was suddenly mild. “Yes, yes. I certainly will. Anything you say. Yes. Midnight? Fine. Yes.…” His voice trailed off into a series of “yeses” accompanied by little smiles, lost on his caller. When he hung up, he changed moods again. “I’m sorry, Mr. Sargeant, but I have a great deal of work to do, packing up the Senator’s papers and all. I don’t know if you’ve heard the news but Governor Ledbetter has just appointed himself to succeed to the Senator’s unfilled term and we’re expecting him tomorrow. Good afternoon.”
3
The Chevy Chase Club is a large old-fashioned building outside Washington, in Maryland. There is a swimming pool, a fine golf course, lawns, big trees, a lovely vista complete with fireflies in the early evening, in season; but we were not in season and my information as to the fireflies and so on was provided by Ellen as we taxied from Washington to the Club. She waxed nostalgic, relating episodes from her youth: in the pool, on the courts, on the course, even on the grass among the trees, though the presence of the innocent Langdon spared us a number of unsavory details.
We had had no trouble getting away that evening, to my surprise. Mrs. Rhodes was properly hoodwinked and the Lieutenant, when we called him to ask permission to go off for the evening, gave it easily. The arrest was going to be made after all, I decided. I wondered if I should leave the dance early so that I could be on hand for the big event. Langdon and Ellen would doubtless be so absorbed in one another that my early departure would not be noticed.
Ellen looked almost regal in her black evening gown. I had never seen her in a black evening dress before, and she was a most striking figure. Her tawny hair pulled straight back from her face like a Roman matron’s and her pale shoulders bare beneath a sable stole. Langdon wore a blue suit and I wore a tuxedo; I had arrived in Washington all prepared for a real social whirl.
The Club was a ha
ndsome building with high ceilings and great expanses of polished floor. It had a summery atmosphere even though snow was on the ground outside and the night was bitter cold.
The gathering looked very distinguished … half a thousand guests at least, in full evening dress. Poor Langdon blushed and mumbled about his blue serge suit but Ellen swept us into the heart of the party without a moment’s hesitation.
Mrs. Goldmountain was a small woman of automatic vivacity, very dark, ageless, with exquisite skin carefully painted and preserved. I recognized her from afar: her picture was always in the magazines smiling up into the President’s face or the Vice-President’s face or into her dog’s face, a celebrated white poodle which was served its meals at its own table beside hers on all state occasions: “Because Hermione loves interesting people,” so the newspapers had quoted her as saying. Whether Hermione Poodle liked famous people or not, we shall never know; that Mrs. Goldmountain did, however, is one of the essential facts about Washington, and famous people certainly liked her because she made a fuss over them, gave rich parties where they met other celebrities. One of the laws of nature is that celebrities adore one another … are, in fact, more impressed by the idea of celebrity than the average indifferent citizen who never sees a movie star and seldom bothers to see his Congressman, presuming he knows what a Congressman is. I looked about me for the poodle but she was nowhere in sight: the dream no doubt of a press agent. Mrs. Goldmountain retained several.
“Ellen Rhodes! Ah, poor darling!” Mrs. Goldmountain embraced her greedily, her little black eyes glistening with interest: this was a coup for her. We were presented and each received a blinding smile, the dentures nearly as bright as the famous Goldmountain emeralds which gleamed at her throat like a chain of “Go” lights. Mr. Goldmountain had been very rich; he had, also, been gathered up some years ago … or ridden on ahead, as my Miss Flynn would also say … leaving his fortune to his bride.
“I am so touched, poor angel,” said Mrs. G., holding both of Ellen’s hands tight in hers and looking intently into her face. “I know how much you cared for your poor father.”