Edge of Panic Page 6

  She remembered the three of them going off to a country roadhouse, a converted big red barn, that served only beer and boasted a three-piece band, two fiddles and a guitar. She remembered how he had spiked the beer with gin from a flask he carried, sage John peering at them like a presiding grandfather, but joining with them; how he had warmed and softened and grown jovial; how they had danced to the fiddles and the guitar; how he had taken them for chile-con-carne and wine served by a wizened old Mexican lady in a restaurant that had three tables and twelve chairs. She remembered how they had talked through a long night in a front seat of a car, John asleep in the back. She remembered the goodness, the sweetness, the wholesomeness, the abnormal shyness, the talking his heart out, until the blue light in the sky was the dawn.

  She remembered the week-ends, New York, his other girls, the courtship, the disappearance of the flask, the approval of John Applegate, the sporadic fits of drinking, the shame afterward, the girls who were constantly calling him, the trouble, always the trouble; but even the trouble was goodness—an exaggerated sense of fair play, an exaggerated sense of gallantry, siding with a little man who was being abused, hushing a loud mouth, protecting a woman who was drinking too much, resenting a rude remark—reaching out and striking, quick and powerful, unthinking, intoxicated.

  That too, like the drinking, had become intermittent, and in the end, had stopped. He had come home out of the service, the first night out, after he had been released from the hospital, still in uniform, limping slightly, in a New York night club, and the tall man had stopped at their table and refused to go away. Harry had been polite at first, frigid, polite, and intelligent, but the tall man had wanted to talk, sitting down beside her, putting an arm around her, explaining something, confidential. Harry had come out from behind the table, had lifted the man out of the chair, had thrown him toward the dance floor. His head had struck a table and he had lain there, bleeding. There had been excitement, shoving, loud talk, more fights, and the police had come. Harry and the man had been arrested. Five sutures had been taken in the man’s head and he and Harry were kept overnight in jail, while she had worried and not slept.

  In the morning, both were taken to a magistrate’s court, where neither made charges against the other, and both were dismissed with a lecture. And it was that evening, while she was in Harry’s furnished room on Bank Street, talking about themselves and wondering about the future, that the man had come. He had checked Harry’s address, and he had come to apologize. His head was bandaged and his face was white and tired, but it was he who apologized to Harry, and in five minutes they were penitent friends.

  That was Ralph Sheer who had had so much to do with their future, Ralph who was the comptroller of a bank, who had suggested free-lance agent when he learned of Harry’s background and war record. Ralph had helped set Harry up in business, arranged a loan from the bank, recommended clients. They had been married four months later, with Ralph Sheer and Johnny as witnesses, and she remembered their first afternoon in their first apartment, the sun shining in through the curtains, and Harry looking at a bottle, and putting it away. She remembered his words: “I’ve been through one war, it’s time I declared another one, on myself. When I think about how I could have hurt a guy like Ralph Sheer—” And that had been the end of it. Cocktails before a meal, drinks at a party, Christmas, New Year’s—but nothing of the other. That had ended. Their son had been born, they had moved up to the big apartment. He was her husband, the man she knew he would be—

  “Not Harry,” she heard herself say.

  She had over-ridden. She turned off at Fourteenth, went back to Twenty-Eighth and Madison. She was cold, standing in the vestibule, ringing John’s bell, cold and frightened. Please, God. She rang only once, a little ring; Harry was asleep. She ran up the stairs and Johnny was waiting. He took her into his arms, holding her.

  “Quiet now, huh? He’s asleep in the bedroom.”

  “John.”

  “Easy does it.”

  “Not Harry. Not Harry.”

  “Easy, girl.”

  “I want to see him.”

  He took her in, holding her arm, led her through the living-room and opened the door of the bedroom, light from the living-room slanting across the bed. Harry lay there, in a maroon bathrobe, his knees up, huddled, his face in the pillow. Johnny closed the door. She made a sound, a whimper, clasping both hands to her mouth.

  “Easy does it,” Johnny said. “Give me your coat.”

  He took her coat, brought her to a wide thick-stuffed wing-back chair. “Sit down, Alice, please. I’ll get you a drink.”

  She watched him go, sitting on the edge of the chair, the fingers of her hands opening and closing until she noticed and stopped it, clasping her hands, squeezing tight, sitting up straight and prim. She watched him hang her coat away and go into the kitchen. She sat back in the great-chair, pulling her feet up under her, looking about the man’s room, large, high-ceilinged, heavily furnished; the pipes on the big desk, the fireplace, the mantel with the wood carvings, the oils on the walls that John himself had done with such exquisite talent; she was suddenly peaceful in the quiet room. Whatever it was, they would see him through, she and John.

  He came back with a tray, a decanter and glasses, and two small plump bottles of soda. He set it down on the wooden straight-legged coffee table. He pulled the coffee table close to her chair, dragged up another chair, went and filled a pipe, came back with an ash tray, sat down opposite her.

  “Straight will help. Soda for a chaser.” He had a deep, slow voice. He poured whisky into a little glass, handed it to her, poured soda into a big glass and gave her that. “Come on, drink up.”

  She drank half in one gulp, gulped the rest of it, expelled breath, her eyes closed, shaking her head. She drank the soda and handed back the glasses. They didn’t say anything. He made himself a highball, sipped, lit the pipe, sat back. She liked the smell of the tobacco. She felt warm, snug in the big chair. Rawness in her soothed. Apprehension dulled. They were all here now, the three of them. Whatever it was, he would be able to explain it, when he woke up, when he was sober. Until then, there was Johnny and she, to talk it out, she and Johnny, an old team, kids together. How often had they sat in solemn conclave, she and Johnny, talking about Harry. It had always worked out, somehow. She smiled.

  “Better,” Johnny said. “Want another?”

  “A little one, Johnny, please. A highball.”

  “Swell.”

  He mixed it and gave it to her. The room was quiet, soft-lit, and this was Johnny opposite her, thoughtful Johnny. He was big, bigger than Harry, taller, heavier, bigger bones, bigger features, with thick black hair, one eyebrow higher than the other, a square chin.

  “Johnny,” she said. “He had money on him. A good deal of money.”

  “Money?”

  “Didn’t he tell you?”

  “No.” He stood up, went to the closet. Harry’s suit was neat across a hanger, his shirt on top of that, and his tie. Johnny began to look in his trousers.

  “No,” Alice said. “In the jacket.”

  He found it at once. He hung the clothes back, riffled through the bills. “Wow,” he said.

  “You keep it. Please keep it. Now, John, please. What is it? What is it all about?”

  He put the package of money in his desk, came back to his chair. He drank some of the highball, pulled at his pipe. “Not good, I think.” He shook his head. “I don’t understand it.”

  “What? Don’t understand what?”

  “I’m going to tell you what I know, just as he told me. We’ll decide then, you and I, what we’ll do.”

  “Yes, Johnny.” Her hands were cold again, cold around the highball glass.

  “He came here in bad shape. He wouldn’t let me help him, until he talked. What he told me didn’t make sense, it wasn’t rational. But he talked, until he was finished. He followed me, talking, while I made coffee. He drank the coffee, talking. He wouldn’t let me do a th
ing for him—until he was finished. After that, he had a shower, and I put him to bed.”

  “It’s the first time, Johnny. Since we’re married.”

  “He told me.”

  “It’s a great compliment to him, Johnny.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “You remember how he used to be.”

  “Yes.”

  “After all—” She put her glass down and pushed the heels of her palms against her temples. “I’m sorry, John. I’m trying to put it off. I’m afraid to hear. That’s what it is, I’m afraid to hear. It isn’t bad, please, John, it isn’t bad.”

  He stood up, began to walk. “According to him, he went to see this woman at five o’clock.”

  “What woman?”

  “Joyce Anderson.”

  “Who is she?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know, despite the fact that he says she mentioned my name to him.”

  “You never heard of her?”

  “Oh, yes, I have. I’ve heard of her. But I didn’t know her. I mean, I don’t know how she could have mentioned my name to him—since I never met the lady or spoke to her in my life.”

  “And Harry?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did he know her—before?”

  “He says he didn’t. He says that this was the first time he had ever seen her.”

  “Then how—”

  “I’m supposed to have recommended her.”

  “Did you?”

  “No.” He stopped at the desk, put his pipe away. “I want to tell you this as clearly as I can. I want to repeat it to myself, clarify it as much as is possible, as I tell you. I think—you can imagine—the way he told it to me—”

  “I’m sorry, John.”

  “She is, was, I don’t know, a young, beautiful woman, the widow of a millionaire, one Theus Anderson. He went there to discuss policies, annuities. He was drunk when he got there. It seems he had spent part of the afternoon with Mr. Quigley—”

  “Yes. James Quigley. He brought the money to the house.”

  “What money?”

  “The money you have in your desk. Ten thousand dollars. Benefits on a life policy for a lady, the Mrs. Polgar you mentioned when you called me. It—it had nothing to do with this. Quigley brought the money to the house early this afternoon. Harry was waiting for him. He didn’t go to the office, not until Quigley came with the money.”

  “Quigley. That’s the man under whom Harry worked, originally, when he broke into insurance.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Names. That’s what further confuses me. I have the sort of mind, as you know, that remembers names. I may forget a face, but I’ll remember a name and the circumstances around the name. I never met a Joyce Anderson. I know that. Yet, according to Harry, I’m the one that, originally, recommended him to her, as an insurance man. True, I’ve recommended him to a great many people, and it may be I recommended him in this case, generally, without knowing the names of the people, but I do know I never met Joyce Anderson, although I know of her.”

  “How?”

  “It was in the papers, some years ago. Show-girl marries millionaire. The usual. Fellow died, and it was in the papers again. That sort of thing.”

  “And Harry says you recommended her?”

  “Harry says she said I recommended her.”

  “Yes, John.”

  “According to him, she called him twice today, left her name with the service. She came to the office at four o’clock. He was high, then. He had been drinking with Quigley. He had added a few, by himself, before coming to the office. When she came, it wasn’t a business conversation. It was one of those quick banter things, kidding. She told him she was interested in annuities, asked him to come over to her place at five. He went.”

  “Where?”

  “The Everett. On Central Park West.”

  “Then?”

  “He was on a binge—”

  “It’s the first time, John. Six years—”

  “It happens. Of course, it happens. I’m not criticizing, Alice. I am trying to have you understand—his state—his state of mind—in view of the developments.”

  “I’m sorry.” She drank most of the highball quickly, putting the glass back on the coffee table, rubbing her hands together, shrinking farther back into the chair. “Yes, John.”

  “When he came there, it continued in the same vein, the kidding, the bantering. There were more drinks—she was dressed, sort of, in a negligee—they never got to talking business—remember, he was drunk, and getting worse—”

  Sharply she said, “I understand.”

  “Alice.”

  She was crying. “Don’t go lawyer on me. Don’t protect him. Whatever there is, please tell it.”

  He came back to his chair, leaned his elbows on his knees. “It gets confusing here. I think she made a play. I think, well—you know—it was nothing—possibly they kissed—he was pretty far gone—”

  “For heaven’s sake, John.”

  “Listen, I don’t want you getting ideas—I just want you to have the picture straight so that you—”

  “Please, please go on.”

  “Right there, something happened—something cracked. The fact that he had gotten drunk was weighing on him—and then, that he was permitting himself to be—well, right there he remembers a tussle, a fight, that he swung at her—the hammer—”

  “What hammer?”

  “There was a hammer there. She had hung a mirror.”

  “Yes—then?”

  “He passed out. I’ll tell it as quickly as I can.”

  “Yes, please.”

  “When he came to, she was dead, her face smashed, blood all over the room, blood on his clothes, the hammer in his hand. The bedroom was stained—”

  “Bedroom? Had they been in the bedroom?”

  “No. They had fought—right there—in the doorway to the bedroom.”

  She stood up, walked softly, came back to the chair, sitting up straight, composed, except for the workings of her fingers. “What do you think, John? What do you think?”

  “Well—”

  “Is it possible that all of it is—untrue, something out of his fantasy, the drunkenness?”

  “No. I don’t think that.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  He added to his highball, stood up out of the chair. “He left his hat there, and his briefcase. He wiped his hand, and he ran. He drank more, cleaned up somewhere, went home. He didn’t mention the money—there was more on his mind, as I’ll tell you—but, I understand now, that’s why he went home. For the money. He had an idea of getting to a boat, and getting away, and then trying to work it out—”

  “What are we going to do? As a lawyer, is there—?”

  He sipped, put the glass down. “Yes, there is. We’ll report it, and in the morning, we’ll turn him in. I want him to get a night’s sleep.”

  “Report it, why?”

  “There’s a woman there—dead.”

  “How? Report it, how? Without their coming to pick him up, now, at once?”

  “Anonymously—by telephone—”

  “Why?”

  “Alice, he’s our Harry—I know how you feel. But if there has been a crime committed, we just can’t leave her there, like that. Can we?”

  “How do we know? How do we know she is there? How do we know a crime has been committed? How can we be sure it isn’t something out of his imagination? How, how—”

  “Easy, Alice.”

  “Yes.” She went to him. “I know how. I’ll do it. I’ll go down there and report it, and I’ll find out, somehow, and we’ll know—maybe there’s something, something else. I’ll check, I’ll work, I’ll try. You keep him here for tonight. I’ll depend on that. You won’t do anything till I come back, till I let you know. Is that all right, John? Is it?”

  “Yes. I think so. If you wish.”

  “I won’t tell them where he is. I won’t tell them an
ything. I’ll just try to find out what it is, what it’s all about—and—perhaps—” She took hold of his arms, shaking him. “John, John—in the morning, what then? What can we do for him? If it’s true, if he really—”

  “Sit down, Alice.” He took her to the sofa, sitting beside her. “Please listen and try to be calm. If he killed this woman—if what he has told us is the truth—intoxication is no excuse, that’s the law, the penalty is the same—but—”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s different with—”

  “What?”

  “Insanity.”

  “John!”

  “Temporary insanity—if it can be proven, you are committed to a place of correction—until you are cured—if—”

  She sat back, away from him, staring, her eyes dry now. “Oh, no. No. You can’t really believe—”

  “It’s the only explanation, and—the only defense.”

  “No. No. He didn’t kill this woman. He couldn’t. Not Harry. It isn’t in him. Sane or insane, it isn’t in him.” She held her hands to her face, her shoulders moving.

  “I don’t think, in his right mind, he could have done it, or anything like it. But something snapped—there is no doubt of that. And, in view of the rest of it, in view of what he told me, I think that’s it, and I think we can make it stand up in a court of law. Alice, I don’t want to say all of this, but we must—be realistic—we must—”

  “The rest of it? What? What? The rest of what?” He brought her a little whisky, made her drink it. “That’s when he broke—that’s when he came here. He had gone down to a travel agency, the one on Forty-Second near the terminal—he was set on getting a ticket for a boat to somewhere, anywhere, quick—and he saw her.”

  “What?”

  “He saw the woman he says he killed.”