by Gore Vidal
I was surprised at my own calm as I touched his hand to see if rigor mortis had set in: it had not. He was only recently dead. I looked at my watch to check on the time: one-nineteen. I looked at his watch, recalling how watches were supposed to stop magically when the wearer died … this watch was ticking merrily: about five minutes fast, too.
I don’t know why it took me so long to notice the confession which was still in the typewriter.
“I killed Senator Rhodes on Wednesday the 13th by placing a package of explosive in his fireplace shortly after we returned from the Senate Office Building Tuesday afternoon. Rather than see an innocent man be condemned for my crime, I herewith make this confession. As to my reason for killing the Senator, I prefer not to say, since a complete confession would implicate others. I will say though that we were involved in an illegal business operation which failed. Because of the coming election, the Senator saw fit to make me the victim of that failure … which would have involved a jail sentence for me and the ruin of my reputation. Rather than suffer this, I took the occasion of Pomeroy’s visit to Washington to kill the Senator, throwing guilt on Pomeroy. Unfortunately I was not able to discover the documents pertaining to our business venture. They are either in the hands of the police or shortly will be. I have no choice but to take this way out, since I prefer dying to a jail sentence and the ruin of my career. I feel no remorse, however. I killed in self-defense. Rufus Hollister.” The name was typewritten but not signed; as though immediately after typing this confession he had shot himself, without even pulling the paper out of the typewriter.
Well, this was more than I had bargained for. The paper chase had led me to a corpse, and to the answer.
Methodically, I searched the room. As far as I could tell there was nothing else to add or subtract from what had happened. The case, it would seem, was closed. With a handkerchief I carefully wiped any prints I might have made on the watch and wrist of the corpse (I had touched nothing else); then I went downstairs and telephoned Lieutenant Winters. It was now one-thirty-six, the anniversary of the Senator’s death.
CHAPTER FIVE
1
It was another all-night session.
Winters nearly had a nervous breakdown that night and the rest of us were far from being serene. We were interviewed one after the other in the dining room, just like the first night but under more distracting circumstances for police photographers and investigators were all over the place and there was talk that Winters would soon be succeeded by another, presumably more canny, official.
The Pomeroys returned, looking no worse than the rest of us that grisly dawn. The newspaper people were at every window until they were finally given a somewhat muffled and confused statement by Winters. He made no mention of the arrest of Pomeroy, an arrest which had not been legally completed, I gathered, since Mr. Pomeroy was now among us.
I sat beside Ellen in the drawing room. The others, the ones who were not being interviewed, talked quietly to one another or else dozed like Verbena Pruitt in her chair, her mouth open and snoring softly, her hair in curlers and her majestic corse damascened in an intimate garment of the night.
Ellen for once looked tired. Langdon sat some distance away, staring at the coals in the fireplace, wondering no doubt how on earth he was to get a story for Advanceguard out of all this confusion.
“Why,” said Ellen irritably, “do they keep us up like this if Rufus did the murder? Why all this damned questioning? Why don’t they go home?”
“They have to find out where we all were,” I said, reasonably … but I wondered too why the confusion since the police had not only a confession but the confessor’s corpse, the ideal combination from the official point of view: no expensive investigation, no long-drawn-out trial, no angry press demanding a solution and a conviction.
Through the crack between the curtains, I saw the gray dawn and heard the noise of morning traffic in the streets. My eyes twitched with fatigue.
Ellen yawned. “In a few minutes I’m going to go to bed whether they like it or not.”
“Why don’t you? They’ve already got your testimony.” There was a commotion in the hall. We both looked and saw Rufus Hollister departing by stretcher, a sheet of canvas over him. As the front door opened, there was a roar of triumph from the waiting photographers; flash bulbs went off. The door was slammed loudly and Rufus Hollister’s earthly remains were gone to their reward: the morgue and, finally, the tomb.
“Disgusting!” said Ellen, using for the first time in my experience that censorious word. Then, without permission, she went to bed.
After the body was gone, a strange peace fell over the house. The policemen and photographers and investigators all stole quietly away, leaving the witnesses alone in the house with Winters and a guard.
At five o’clock I was admitted to the dining room.
Winters sat with bloodshot eyes and tousled hair looking at a vast pile of testimony, all in shorthand, the work of his secretary who sat a few feet down the table with a pad and pencil.
He grunted when I said hello; I sat down.
He asked me at what time I had found the body. I told him.
“Did you touch anything in the room?”
“Only the corpse’s hand, his wrist, to see how long he was dead, or if he was dead.”
“Was the body in the same position when we arrived that it was in when you found it?”
“Yes.”
“What were you doing in Hollister’s room at that time of night?” The voice, though tired, was sharp and impersonal.
“I wanted to ask him something.”
“What did you want to ask him?”
“About a note I received this morning.”
Winters looked at me, surprised. “A note? What note?”
I handed it to him. He read it quickly. “When did this arrive?” His voice was cold.
“This morning at breakfast … or rather yesterday morning.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about it?”
“Because I thought it was a hoax. I figured there was plenty of time to give it to you. I had no idea you were planning to arrest Pomeroy so quickly.” This was a well-directed jab at the groin. Winters scowled.
“You realize that there is a penalty for withholding vital evidence?”
“I didn’t withhold it. I just gave it to you.”
A four-letter word of exasperation and anger burst from his classic mouth. We were both silent for a moment. He studied the letter. “What,” he said in a less official voice, “do you think this means?”
“I thought it meant that Hollister was the one who broke into the library that night and got some incriminating documents, or tried to find some.”
“Obviously he didn’t find them.”
“Did you find them?”
The law shook its head. “If we did we aren’t aware of their significance,” he said candidly. “We’ve checked and double-checked all the secret files and, as far as I can tell, there isn’t anything in any of them which would send Hollister to jail, or even the Senator … a lot of fast political deals but nothing illegal.”
“Do you think the Senator might have kept his business transactions somewhere else?” I recalled those mysterious safety deposit boxes belonging to pillars of the Congress which revealed, when opened posthumously, mysterious quanties of currency, received for services rendered.
“I think we’d have found it by now.”
“Maybe the Governor might be able to tell you. He was the Senator’s lawyer.”
Winters sighed and looked discouraged. “I can’t get a word out of him. All he does is harangue me about our heritage of civil liberty.”
“Maybe you can track down who wrote that note and ask them.”
Winters looked at me vindictively. “You picked a fine time to let me know, right after I almost made a false arrest. What was the big idea?”
“Remember that I didn’t see you all day. I got the note in the morning. I went to see Hol
lister to question him …”
“Then you did talk to him about the papers?”
“I certainly did.”
Winters was interested. “What did you get out of him? How did he seem?”
“I got nothing out of him and, for a man who planned to commit suicide in the next few hours, he was remarkably calm.”
“No hint at all? What exactly happened. Word for word.”
I tried to recall as exactly as possible my conversation, making my bluffs sound, in the telling, more insidiously clever than they were. My testimony was recorded by the silent clerk.
When I finished the Lieutenant was no wiser. “Was anyone else there? Did he mention anyone else’s name?”
“Not that I remember. We were alone. Some newspaper people tried to get him on the phone and …” A light was turned on in my head, without warning. “What time did Hollister die?”
“What time …” Winters was too weary to react quickly.
“The coroner, what time did he fix his death?”
“Oh, about twelve. They’ll know exactly when the autopsy is made.”
“Hollister was murdered,” I said with a studious avoidance of melodrama, so studiously did I avoid the dramatic that Winters did not understand me. I was forced to repeat myself, my announcement losing much of its inherent grandeur with repetition.
“No,” said Lieutenant Winters, beginning to weave in his chair, “he was the murderer. We have his confession.”
“Which was typed by the murderer after he was shot.”
“Go to bed.”
“I plan to, in a few minutes. Before I go I want to make sure that you plan to keep a heavy guard in this house. I have no intention of being the next ox slaughtered.”
“Why,” said Winters with a mock-show of patience, “do you think Hollister was murdered?”
“Because when I was in his office yesterday morning he got a telephone call from an unknown party who made a date to see him last night at midnight, at twelve o’clock, at the hour of his death. From what he said over the phone I could tell it was someone he was very anxious to please … someone he had every intention of meeting.”
“Perhaps he saw them and then killed himself.”
“Not likely. Not in the house. He was home all evening, I gather. He had made no plan to go out. Therefore his guest was coming to see him here. But no one entered or left the house, as far as we know … no stranger that is. Whoever he was supposed to meet was already in the house, one of the suspects … the murderer, in fact.”
While I had been talking Winters sat straighter and straighter in his chair. When I paused for breath, he said, “I don’t want you to say anything about this to anyone. Understand?”
“I do.”
“Not only because you may be right and the murderer would be warned but because if you are right and the murderer does think you’re on his trail we will have a third victim.”
I said that I had no desire to make the front pages as a corpse.
“There’s a chance you’re right,” he said thoughtfully. “I wish to hell you’d used your head and got that anonymous letter to me earlier. We could have tested it for prints, checked the handwriting and the paper … now it’ll take us several days to get a report on it. In the meantime, keep your mouth shut. Pretend the case is finished, which is what we’re going to do. We’ll keep the house party together for a few days longer, as long as we can. We’ll have to act quickly.”
“I know,” I said, feeling a little chilly and strange. “By the way whose pistol was it that did the murder?”
“Mrs. Rhodes’.”
2
I was most reluctant to meet the light the next morning, as the Roman poets would say, or rather the afternoon of the same day. I probably would have slept until evening if the telephone beside my bed hadn’t rung. I picked up the receiver, eyes still closed, positive that I could continue sleeping while conducting a lively conversation on the phone.
For several moments I mumbled confidently into the receiver, aware of a faraway buzz. Then I opened one eye and saw that I was talking into the wrong end. Correcting this, completely awake, I listened to Miss Flynn’s gentle reproaches.
“A Number of things have Come-up,” she said. “Which require your personal Supervision.”
I explained to her that a Number of things had Come-up here, too, that I couldn’t get away for several days.
“We were of the opinion that the case had been concluded in Washington and that the recent Suicidalist was, ipso facto, the Murderer of the Statesman.”
“Are the papers out?” I had not realized it was so late, that the afternoon papers are already on the street.
“Indeed they are. With a Prominent Display in the Globe bearing your Signature.”
I had pulled out all the stops in that article, just before going to bed. I had used more colors than the rainbow contains in my description of finding the body, of the case’s conclusion, for that was how Winters and I wanted it to sound. The editor had been most pleased and it took considerable strength on my part not to tell him there would be yet another story.
I stalled Miss Flynn as, unhappily, she outlined the various troubles which had befallen my clients. Most of the complications were easily handled over the phone. The dog food concern offered a serious crisis, however; fortunately, I was visited with one of my early morning revelations. I told Miss Flynn to tell those shyster purveyors of horsemeat that in twenty-four hours I would have a remarkable scheme for them. She was not enthusiastic but then enthusiasm would ill become her natural pomp.
After our conversation, I telephoned Mrs. Goldmountain and, rather to my surprise, got her. We made an appointment to meet later that afternoon.
Then I bathed, dressed and, prepared for almost anything, went downstairs. I was a little surprised to find life proceeding so calmly. Lunch was just over and the guests were sitting about in the drawing room. The law was nowhere in sight.
If anyone had noticed my absence during the day, it was not mentioned when I joined them.
I told the butler I wanted only coffee, which I would have in the drawing room. Then I joined Ellen and Langdon by the window. The shades were drawn, indicating either a bad day or the presence of police and newspaper people outside.
“Ah!” said Ellen, at my approach. She looked, of them all, the freshest. Langdon was rather gray and puffy.
“Ah, yourself.” I sat down across from them. Coffee was brought me. I took a long swallow and the world at last fell into a proper perspective.
“The case,” I said in Holmesian accents, “is closed.”
“Not quite,” said Ellen, looking at me with eyes as clear as quartz, despite the debauchery and tension of the night before. “It seems there is another day or two of questioning ahead of us, lucky creatures that we are. I’ve done everything except offer Winters my person to be allowed to go back to New York.”
I didn’t say the obvious; instead I asked her why she wanted to go back. “Tonight is Bess Pringle’s party, that’s why. It’s going to be the party of the season and I want to go.”
“Why does he want us to stay here?” I pretended innocence.
“God only knows. Red tape of some kind.”
“I’ve thought of one approach to the murder,” said Langdon suddenly, emerging from a gray study.
“And that?” I tried to look interested.
“The red tape aspects. You know, the complications which a murder sets in motion, all the automatic and pointless things which must be done, the …” His voice began to trail off as our lack of interest became apparent. I did see how the Advanceguard was able to keep its circulation down to the distinguished and essential few.
Before Ellen could begin her laments about Bess Pringle or Langdon could discuss the case with me, I asked about the party, explaining my early return to the house with some ready lie.
“We didn’t get back until two,” said Langdon gloomily.
“And I wouldn’t
have come back at all if I had known what had happened,” said Ellen sharply.
“Did I miss anything?”
“A member of the Cabinet played a harmonica,” said Langdon coldly.
“He played a medley from Stephen Foster,” said Ellen.
“I thought you were with that Marine when the concert was given,” Langdon was catching on to our Ellen with considerable speed, considering his youth and idealism.
“Ah,” said Ellen and closed her eyes.
I left them and went over to the table by the fireplace where the mail was kept. There was only one letter for me, a thick one addressed in red pencil, the handwriting slanting backwards. My hands shook as I opened it.
Out fell a sheaf of legal documents. I looked through them rapidly, trying to find some explanation; there was none, no covering letter: nothing but a pile of legal documents which, without examining them, I knew concerned the business affairs of Hollister and the Senator, the papers for want of which he had apparently killed himself.
Before I could examine them further, Camilla Pomeroy came over to me, smiling gently. “How wonderful to be out of all this!” she exclaimed, looking deep into my eyes.
“You’ll be going back to Talisman City soon, won’t you?”
“As soon as possible,” she said.
“You must be relieved,” I said, trying to tell from her expression what she was actually thinking; but I could not: her face was as controlled as a bad actress’.
“Oh, terribly. Roger is like a new man.”
“He was in a tough spot.”
“Very!” She was not at all like the woman who had come to my room the other night with every intention not only of forbidden pleasure but of incriminating her husband. She was again the loyal wife, incapable of treachery. What was she all about?
“I … I want you to know that I wasn’t myself the night we had our talk. I was close to a breakdown and I’m afraid I didn’t know what I was doing, or saying. You will forgive me, won’t you?”
“There’s nothing to forgive,” I said gallantly, knowing perfectly well she was afraid I might let her husband know in some fashion about her betrayal, her double treachery.