by Gore Vidal
“I don’t believe you.”
“But it’s true.”
“Even if all you say is true why do you involve yourself in it? Why not go back to New York? Why involve yourself in a world which has nothing to do with yours?”
“Because, Mrs. Rhodes, I’m already involved, because I’m in danger no matter where I go.”
“Danger? Why?”
“Because I know who the murderer is and the murderer knows that I know.” This was a crashing lie but there was no help for it.
She pushed her chair back and stood up, as though prepared to run from the room; her face was ash-gray. “You’re lying,” she said at last.
I stood up, too. From the hall I could hear a door shut and the sound of someone running upstairs. We stood looking at one another like two graven images, like gargoyles on a mediaeval tower.
Then she recovered her composure and gave a strange little laugh. “You are trying to confuse me,” she said, attempting lightness. “We all know that Rufus was the murderer and that he killed himself. Whatever argument Johnson had with him was perfectly innocent … as far as the main thing goes. Certainly the thought that Johnson killed Rufus is a ridiculous one, quite unimaginable.”
“Then why did you imagine it, Mrs. Rhodes? It never occurred to me that he did.”
She flushed, confused. “I … I was mistaken then. I was under the impression you thought Johnson was in some way involved.”
I was conscious that she had betrayed something of enormous value to me, but what I could not tell. “No,” I said. “I never thought the Governor killed Rufus but I am curious about their conversation.”
“I suspect that it is none of your business, in any case, Mr. Sargeant,” Mrs. Rhodes was herself again.
“As I pointed out, it is my business if it concerns the murder.” I could be quite as cold as she.
“And you think there is some connection?”
“Certainly. The collapse of this company has a great deal to do with the case … not only with your husband’s death but with the career of Governor Ledbetter.”
She gathered up her purse, a handkerchief, prepared to go. “I assume then you will be staying with us for quite some time, after the others leave tomorrow?” This was insulting.
“No, Mrs. Rhodes,” I said looking her straight in the eye, “I will deliver the murderer tomorrow.”
She looked at me for one long moment, quite expressionless; then in a low voice, intensely, she said, “You meddlesome fool!” and she swept out of the room.
Feeling somewhat shaken, and a little silly, I went out into the hall. A familiar perfume was in the air as I walked slowly up the stairs, wondering what to do next. There was very little chance that I would be able to unmask the murderer, much less be able to collect sufficient evidence to assure conviction.
I was tempted to forget about the whole thing.
I was surprised, when I opened the door to my room, to find Walter Langdon leaning over my desk in a most incriminating fashion. He gave a jump when he saw me.
“Oh! I … I’m awfully sorry. I came in here just a minute ago, looking for you. I wanted to borrow some typewriter paper.”
At least it could have been a match, or wanting to know the time. “There’s some in the top drawer,” I said.
He opened it and, with shaking hands, took out a few sheets. “Thanks a lot.”
“Perfectly all right.”
“Hope I can do the same for you one day.”
“Never can tell.” The sort of dialogue which insures, or used to insure, any number of Hollywood scriptwriters a secure and large income.
“Sit down,” I said.
“I really better get ready for dinner.”
“You look just fine.” He sat down in the chair at the desk; I sat on the foot of the bed, legs crossed in a most nonchalant fashion. “Are you satisfied with the way things turned out?”
He looked puzzled. “You mean the murders?”
I caught that. “So you think Rufus was murdered too?”
“No, he killed himself, didn’t he? That’s what the police seem to think.”
“Why did you say ‘murders’?”
“A slip of the tongue. Two deaths is what I meant.” He was perfectly calm.
“But I take it you think Rufus was murdered?”
“You take it wrong, Sargeant,” said Langdon. “I see no reason to think Rufus might have been killed. It makes perfect sense the way it is. I think you should leave it alone.” The second time I had been advised, in exactly those words, to keep my nose clean. I was beginning to feel that a monstrous cabal had been formed to misguide me.
“You don’t have much of the newspaperman in you, Langdon,” I said in the hearty tone of a stock company actor in The Front Page.
“I’m not really one,” said Langdon with a touch of frost in his voice. “I just do occasional articles. I’m mainly interested in the novel.”
I have all the pseudo-intellectual’s loathing of those who have dedicated themselves, no matter how sincerely and competently, to art … a form of envy, I suppose, which becomes contempt if they fail. Langdon had all the earmarks of a potential disaster.
“Even so you should be more interested in this sort of thing. Have you decided what you’re going to write about for your magazine?”
He nodded. “I’m working on it now, that’s why I needed the paper. I want to have a first draft ready by the time I get back to the office, tomorrow afternoon.”
“What line are you taking?”
“Oh, the implications of a political murder … I use the Rhodes thing as a point of departure, if you know what I mean.”
I knew only too well: the Diachotomy of Murder or The Theology of Crisis in Reaction. It would be great fun to read, I decided grimly. “Then you’ll be taking the noon train with Ellen?” This was a guess, but perfectly logical.
“Yes, as a matter of fact, we are going back together.”
“She’s quite something isn’t she?”
Langdon nodded seriously. “She certainly is.”
“Are you still engaged to her?”
“Oh, it wasn’t a formal engagement.”
“I’m sure of that; they never are.”
Langdon blushed. “She … she’s very promiscuous, isn’t she?”
“Yes, Walter, she is,” I said in the tone of a Scoutmaster explaining to a new tenderfoot the parts of the body and their uses.
“I didn’t think it was so bad until we went out to Chevy Chase and she ducked off with a Marine …”
“She’s been known to complete a seduction in ten minutes.”
“Well, this took a lot longer. I was mad as hell at her but she told me it was none of my business, that she thought the Marine much too nice-looking to let go; it was then I caught on.”
“You didn’t really care about her that much, did you?” I was curious; both Ellen and I had thought him a fool.
He scratched his sandy hair in a bumpkin manner. “Not really. I never ran into anything quite like her before and I guess I was taken in for a little bit.”
“The fact she now has a million dollars, as well as an uninhibited technique, might make her irresistible to an American boy.”
“Not this boy.” But I detected a wistful note; she had used him up, as it were. I wondered what would become of her now that she was rich; there were bound to be operators cleverer than she in the world, and what a ride they could take her for. Well, it was no business of mine.
“Let me see what you write for the Advanceguard, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all. I’d like your advice.” Then he left the room.
I puttered about the room, getting ready for dinner, the last dinner in this house. I packed my bag, slowly, reluctantly, aware that the puzzle was incomplete and would doubtless remain so now, forever. I cursed my ill luck, my slow brain, the craft of my opponent: for some time now I had regarded the killer as a malicious personal opponent whose delight it was
to torment me.
I opened my desk to see if there were any letters or old socks in the drawers. There was nothing. Only a few sheets of typewriter paper. On one of them I had made some elaborate doodles; at the center of the largest decoration I had written “paper chase” in old English type.
Paper chase. I thought of Mrs. Rhodes. Something I had heard that day came back to me; something I had known all along appeared in a new way. Unexpectedly every piece fell into place.
And I knew who had killed Senator Rhodes, and Rufus Hollister.
4
It was evident from the happy faces at table that night that this was to be our last supper together. No one was sorry that the ghastly time was finally over. I was giddy with triumph and I had a difficult time not showing it. My exuberance was doubtless attributed to our coming freedom. We were like prisoners on the eve of parole.
I took great care not to betray myself. I made no reference all that evening to the case; I indicated in no way that I had completed the picture puzzle. I even refrained from staring too long at the killer, who was most serene, doubtless confident that the whole desperate gamble had been won at last.
Winters was noticeable by his absence. There had been some talk that he would come by to say farewell but he did not, out of shame at facing me, I decided, complacent in my victory, keyed up to an extraordinary pitch both by my discovery and by the danger which attended it.
I lacked evidence, of course, but when one knows a problem’s answer its component parts can be deduced and proved, by working backwards. I had, I was sure, the means of proving what I knew.
After dinner, we were joined in the drawing room by Johnson Ledbetter and Elmer Bush. They came in out of the black winter night, their faces red from cold, bringing cold air with them.
Their entrance depressed, somewhat, the gala mood of the guests.
Mrs. Rhodes poured us coffee. Cups were handed about. The discredited statesman took bourbon. His journalistic ally did the same. They sat talking by the fire to Mrs. Rhodes, Roger Pomeroy and Verbena Pruitt, leaving the women and children to amuse themselves. We amused ourselves, even though I was anxious to join the circle by the fire.
Ellen and Camilla fell to wrangling in a most sisterly fashion while Langdon and I exchanged weighty opinions on the state of contemporary letters (“decadent”).
After an hour of this, everyone shifted positions, as often happens with a group in civilized society: a spontaneous rearrangement of the elements to distribute the boredom more democratically.
I ended up with Ledbetter and Elmer and Verbena Pruitt at the fireplace.
“It has become,” said Ledbetter slowly, “A Party Issue.”
“In which case you’re bound to win,” said Verbena comfortably. “I have word that the White House intends to intervene.”
“But when? When?” His voice rose querulously.
“His hands are tied. You know how he feels about interfering in legislative problems. Yet I have it on the highest, the very highest, authority that he intends to act before the week is over. One word from him and the Party will support you.”
“Meanwhile I undergo martyrdom.”
“It may turn out to be political Capital,” said Elmer Bush, nodding happily, pleased to be involved in such high and dirty politics.
The Senator-Designate snorted. He looked at the end of his rope; he was also getting tight. “What a mess it is, Grace,” he said, turning with a sigh to Mrs. Rhodes. She smiled and patted his hand.
“It won’t last much longer,” she said softly.
“I hope you’re right.” I was surprised by this sudden gentle exchange; could they have been … but it was to far-fetched.
I was suddenly tempted to drop the whole thing; to retire from the scene with the secret satisfaction of having solved a case which, all things considered, had proven to be damned near insoluble.
I looked at the murderer thoughtfully, aware, disagreeably, of my own power. I have few sadistic impulses and I had no chivalrous love for any of the dead. I resolved at that moment to keep my information to myself.
“The point I have been making continually,” said Ledbetter, turning on the professional political voice which became him so well, if you happen to like politicians of the old school, “is that my connection with the company was perfectly legal, that Rufus and Lee between them ran it and that all I did was have my office occasionally handle their legal work for them. I had no other connection with it.”
“But why, Senator, if you had so little to do with the companies, did you have an equal share with Mr. Rhodes?” I was surprised at my own boldness; hostile eyes were turned upon me.
“I left all that to them, young man. Instead of paying me a legal fee, they gave me stock. I paid very little attention to what they were doing. I will not say that I was used by Lee, my oldest and dearest friend, but I will say that Rufus Hollister was a most sinister figure. I am now engaged in investigating, at considerable expense, his business dealing for the past fifteen years, since he came to Washington. It will make unsavory reading, sir, most unsavory.”
Elmer Bush nodded. “There is already enough proof at hand to show that Hollister was involved, on his own, in a number of rackets which would completely discredit him.”
“While my own record is …” An open book, I murmured to myself, “an open book,” said Johnson Ledbetter, scowling honestly. “I was used by him. I am being used now by politicians in an effort to discredit not only me but the Party. We will win, though,” he added, his voice solemn, like a keynoter at a convention.
“You should’ve shown more sense,” said Verbena sharply. Mrs. Rhodes excused herself aware, doubtless, that her husband’s memory might be impugned. It was. “Lee was always getting involved in some get-rich-quick scheme and though he was perfectly honest he couldn’t resist a deal, no matter how shady, if it looked like a million dollars might be made. The fact that he never made a cent on these things is proof enough that he was a dupe himself, though he thought he was a financial genius.”
“Where did he make that three and a half million he left in his will?” I asked, always practical.
“Inherited,” said Verbena crisply.
This was interesting; I wondered why I had never thought before to inquire into the source of the Rhodes fortune. “One thing which puzzles me, though,” I said, in a very humble way, “is why, if Senator Rhodes was perfectly innocent in this deal, did he go out of his way to arrange it so that Rufus Hollister would be solely responsible for the company’s illegality?”
“How,” said Ledbetter, “do we know that Lee did? We have only Hollister’s word for it, in that farewell note of his.”
“We have also those documents which were sent to me anonymously.”
“Had they been executed?”
“No, sir, they had not, but the fact that they had been drawn up indicated that someone expected to use them in case the various deals were ever made public; the papers provided a perfect out for Rhodes.” And for you, I added to myself.
“But there is no proof that either Lee or myself drew up those documents, remember that,” said Ledbetter, and I saw quite clearly the direction his defense would take.
“By the way,” I asked, “what was his attitude the other night when you talked to him, before he died?”
The Senator-Designate was startled.
Verbena snorted angrily. “How did you know Johnson was here?”
“It’s no secret, is it?”
“At the moment, yes,” said Verbena and she looked like an angry mountain before an eruption.
“You will do me a great favor by saying nothing about that visit in the press, my boy,” said Ledbetter with an attempt at good-fellowship.
“I’m sure Pete wouldn’t think of it,” said Elmer, warningly: reminding me that he was still author of the Globe’s main feature: “America’s New York,” and of considerable influence with the editor.
“I have no intention of printing any of t
his, Senator,” I said earnestly. “My only interest was in the murder. Politics is out of my line. I was only curious, that’s all. I mean you were the last person to see Rufus alive.”
“This is, then, off the record,” said Ledbetter heavily. “Rufus Hollister threatened me, threatened to blackmail me. I told him to do his worst. He said he would, that he would cause a scandal even if it would involve him. I am afraid that we parted enemies, never to meet again in this world.” There was a long silence.
I was suddenly weary of the whole business, sleepy, too.
Mrs. Rhodes returned and the company rearranged itself like musical chairs. I refused a drink, was given coffee, but it did not wake me up. Yawning widely behind my hand, I excused myself and went up to bed.
The case was solved and I had the satisfaction not only of having solved it but also of denying myself the glory of announcing my solution to the world, to the accompaniment of fame and glory. I was quite pleased with myself.
When I got to my room, I went straight to the bathroom to brush my teeth. I was so exhausted that I had trouble keeping awake. When I finished I sat down for a moment on the toilet seat to rest. I awoke suddenly to find that my head had fallen with a crack against the washbasin. I had gone to sleep.
Rubbing my eyes, I got to my feet and went into the bedroom. Each step I took fatigued me. I wondered if I might be ill, if I’d caught Camilla Pomeroy’s virus. I fell across the bed. I was ill. I tried to sit up but the effort was too great. My hands and feet were ice-cold and I felt chill waves engulf my body.
Clouded as my brain was, on the verge of unconsciousness, I realized that I had been poisoned. I was just able to knock the telephone off its hook before I passed out.
CHAPTER SEVEN
1
“Is he dead?” asked Lieutenant Winters, his voice coming to me from behind some dark green clouds through which a light shone fitfully.
“Not yet,” said a voice and I slipped away, discouraged.
My next attempt at consciousness occurred when a great many yards of tubing were withdrawn from my insides. I opened my eyes, saw a pair of hands above me, felt the tube being withdrawn, felt hideously sick and passed out again.