Bedelia (16 page)

Charlie looked at the floor.

“I paint,” Ben said grimly, “only as a kind of hobby. It helped me in this case. She said her first husband was an artist. Let me give you my card.” He took out his wallet and gave a card to Charlie. On it was printed “Benjamin Wallace Chaney & Sons, Private Investigators,” and an address on Broad Street, New York, and in the lower left-hand corner, “Mr. B.W. Chaney, Jr.”

Charlie threw the card into the wastebasket.

“At present we're doing a job for the Federal Insurance Company, the South & Western, The Household, and the New Colonial & Family Life.” The last named was the company in which Charlie's life was insured for sixty thousand dollars.

“Since last winter these companies have combined in an effort to trace the woman or women involved in these cases.
It's been mostly a routine job because we've been looking into the lives of women whose husbands have taken out policies or increased their coverage to a figure which is out of proportion to their earnings. Mostly the wives of overinsured men are nervous, spoiled, and afraid of being left alone. You can check up on these women in a few days. They have families, friends, school records. But when a woman tells you about a past that can't be checked, when you can't locate a single old friend, nor a house in which she's lived, nor a store where she's traded . . .”

Charlie had controlled himself admirably through the earlier revelations, but all of a sudden, he began to shout. “Get out of here! Get out!”

Ben noted the red stain on Charlie's lip, the scar left by Bedelia's affection, and he smiled a little. That smile was too much for Charlie. He leaped and struck. Ben was unprepared. The breath was knocked out of him. Charlie stood above the Morris chair, his clenched fists raised and ready to strike again. This was not decent fighting. But Charlie had no regard now for the rules of the game. His anger was hard and hot and every instinct urged him to punish his enemy.

He lunged forward, fist aimed at Ben's chin. Ben was on his guard and, although still seated, he struck hard. Charlie lurched backward. Ben leaped up. Charlie recovered and moved forward again. Ben was a smaller man, but he had training and experience in fighting. Charlie had not used his fists since he was a freshman and had only anger to guide him. He fought ruggedly but ineffectually. Ben caught him around the waist and with a twist of his right arm threw Charlie to the floor.

Charlie started up, but Ben was upon him. His every movement was easy, economical of effort, swift and certain. Charlie would not give in until his rage was satisfied. He fought wildly. They rolled the length of the room. Finally Ben pinned him down and kneeled upon him in a way that left him completely helpless. Charlie was red-faced and weary while Ben seemed hardly to have exerted himself. He got up, straightened his coat, pulled at his tie and smoothed his hair. Until Charlie was on his
feet, Ben kept his back turned so that Charlie should not feel his humiliation too keenly.

Charlie stood in the center of the room, his hands hanging loose and his arms suspended weakly from his defeated shoulders. He had lost the fight and had been allowed to dust himself off. He saw that the struggle had been senseless. Even if he had trounced Ben, he could not have changed any of the detective's facts.

When Charlie spoke again, he chose his words with care and enunciated clearly. “I think I know why you told me that story and what you want me to believe. But you're wrong. You've followed a false lead. I don't want to hear any more about it.”

“I don't blame you,” Ben said smoothly. “I'd have done the same thing to anyone who made that kind of remark about my wife. But the fact remains . . .”

“I don't want any more of your facts!”

“Maybe they'll seem more interesting after you've had a dose of poison in your boiled rice.”

“You can go to hell!” Charlie shouted.

“There had probably been a sedative in Will Barrett's last stein of beer. She could have got hold of all the opiates and poisons she needed while she sat in the prescription room with her husband. If he went to the toilet or out to wait on a customer, she could have sneaked a little out of this jar or that. Probably cached away plenty of it for future business.”

“That's just a conjecture. Proves nothing.”

“A fellow in Topeka, Kansas, Alfred Hall, a meat jobber, died after sprinkling insect powder on his French toast instead of powdered sugar. He was off on a fishing trip and cooked his own meals. His wife had planned to go with him, but she was having heart palpitations and the doctor warned her against all exercise. So the poor husband had to go alone. The night before he left, he packed his kit, a very handsome and expensive kit it was, all fitted out with tin plates and containers for food. His wife had given it to him for his birthday. Some neighbors had stopped in that evening and Hall showed them the new kit before he went into the kitchen to pack it. A few days later,
some Boy Scouts found his body beside his dead campfire. And there was insect powder in one of his tin shakers. Hall was nearsighted and must have mistaken it for powdered sugar when he packed.”

“Accidents happen,” said Charlie.

“Indeed they do. And nobody blamed the poor wife. This isn't one of our cases, so we're not investigating the widow. Hall had neglected to insure himself properly and all she got out of it was about forty thousand in cold cash. I'm only telling you about Hall to show you how careful a man's got to be with French toast.”

Charlie tried to show indifference.

“You're not nearsighted, but you have indigestion. Now don't get sore again,” Ben hastened to say. “It's only that a lot of men have been trapped by their weaknesses, one nearsighted, one with a taste for fish, one who couldn't take his beer without getting drowsy. And always such careful planning. Palpitations of the heart, doctors' warnings, convenient birthday presents, an aversion to fish, a passion for moonlight sails.”

“So that's where Meyers got the idea? From you?”

“I wanted to get my operative in here, not only to keep an eye on things, but to see that nothing was slipped into your food or medicine. If you had died after all those authentic symptoms, it would have been the most natural thing in the world for the doctor to write Acute Indigestion on the death certificate and let it go at that.”

“But it was acute indigestion. You know very well I'd been having dyspepsia for some time.”

“That can be brought on artificially, too?”

“Nonsense.”

“There are a number of drugs that could have done it. Digitalis, for instance. And she had been giving you that sedative . . .”

“A simple bromide that Loveman mixed for us.” Charlie had become peevish. “I don't want to hear any more of your filthy suspicions. The doctor got his analysis, didn't he? Didn't
it show? You know as well as I that I had an attack of acute indigestion, nothing more.”

“I was here when you told your wife about it,” Ben reminded him. “You may remember that it was right after that that I mentioned Keene Barrett's name for the first time. I did it with a purpose. I wanted her to know she wasn't as safe as she supposed.”

“Damn you!” cried Charlie, the cords rising in his neck and his voice tightening. “What right have you to speak of her in that fashion?”

“It would have been greatly to her advantage to have had the analysis made and proved negative. Another attack would seem quite normal. And if it had been fatal, she'd have blamed poor old Meyers for faulty diagnosis and improper care.”

“You've got no proof of anything.”

“Did you notice,” Ben asked slyly, “how she acted when she first smelled the smoke of your Christmas cigars?”

“What was there to notice?”

“Odors are potent in stimulating the memory. McKelvey smoked that brand. They were specially made in Cuba for members of his club. She wouldn't have reacted so violently to the smell of ordinary cigar smoke.”

“Thanks for your thoughtful Christmas gift,” Charlie said.

“You know there was never a Raoul Cochran in New Orleans?” Ben waited for Charlie to answer the question. Charlie looked as if he had not heard. “None of the artists had ever heard the name, nor any of the landlords in the French Quarter, and none of the stores that sell artists' supplies.”

“They lived quietly in a cheap flat. Probably they paid their rent in cash. They didn't know many people.”

“What about those parties they gave whenever they could afford a chicken and a bottle of claret? And what of the friends who insisted that his paintings be sold at auction so the dealer couldn't cheat the poor widow? And where's the dealer?”

Charlie had no answer.

“I know artists,” Ben said. “I've lived in colonies in summer, and have spent as much time as I could afford with painters.
They're alike in one thing . . . they'll talk about their work to anyone who'll listen, and most of them ask for credits from the fellows who sell brushes and canvas. How is it, then, that nobody there remembers a painter named Raoul Cochran and his pretty wife? For God's sake, Charlie, wipe that red stuff off your face, it makes you look like a damn fool.”

“Red stuff?”

“Evidently you've been kissed.”

Abashed, Charlie pulled out his handkerchief.

“On the left side, just above your mouth.” Ben spoke testily. “There were no paintings with the signature of Cochran, no dealer, no friends, no credit at the stores, no trace anywhere of Raoul or Bedelia.”

Charlie looked at the red stain on his handkerchief.

“Neither the City Hall nor any hospital has a record of Cochran's death.”

Charlie managed to produce a frigid, disdainful voice. “I met a number of people who knew her.”

“In Colorado Springs? They'd met her there, hadn't they? Just as you did.”

“Just the same, I don't think there's any connection.”

“You may be right. I have no evidence that Annabel McKelvey, Chloe Jacobs, and Maurine Barrett are the same woman. But they had one trait in common. They photographed so badly that all of them, pretty woman, too, were more afraid of cameras than of pistols . . . or poison. Have you ever taken a picture of your wife?”

Charlie could not answer. He had lost his expensive German Kodak when he was off on a jaunt in the mountains with Mrs. Bedelia Cochran. She had let him take several snapshots of her, and then his Kodak had, quite by accident, fallen off a cliff.

“When I suggested that she sit for her portrait,” Ben said, “she hesitated at first and told me she was a bad model. Cochran had tried several times to paint her, but had to give up, she said. I begged her to let me try and finally she consented. In fact, we had quite a conspiracy about it, for she decided to give you her portrait for a birthday present, and insisted that she would
pay me for it. I knew, of course, the portrait would never be finished.”

The Kodak had been a gift from his mother and Charlie had always been careful with it. He could almost remember placing it with his coat and knapsack beside a rock at a safe distance from the edge before he went off to gather wood for their fire. Afterward Bedelia said that he had been absent-minded. She had noticed that he left the camera near the edge and had meant to speak of it, but disliked reproaching him.

“These wives,” Ben continued, “had another trait in common. Annabel, Chloe, and Maurine were always sweet-tempered, docile, and patient. McKelvey, Jacobs, and Barrett were unusually happy husbands. I guess a woman who regards her marriage as temporary can afford to be easy-going with a man. She doesn't have to worry about giving him a finger and having him take the whole hand. No wonder Mrs. Barrett thought her sister-in-law spoiled her husband.”

Charlie went into the hall and looked up the stairs. He had heard something on the second floor. Or perhaps he had only imagined he heard his wife coughing. But when he climbed the stairs, he discovered that the bedroom door was closed tight. For this he was grateful. What if Bedelia had heard Ben's story? Charlie was ashamed because he had listened to all of it and he despised himself for having lost the fight.

He opened the door softly, crossed the bedroom on tiptoe. As his eyes became accustomed to the dim light, he saw his wife's features clearly, the proud little nose, the doll's mouth, the curling lashes and the rounded chin. She slept as peacefully as a child.

Downstairs again, facing Ben, he said, “Please don't talk so loud. I don't want anyone to hear what we're saying.” He would not use his wife's name nor even refer to her by a pronoun. Charlie was calmer now, and better able to handle his end of the argument. The visit to the bedroom and the sight of his wife's innocent slumber had restored his faith. He had been tempted to abuse Ben, to scorch the man's pride with fiery insult, but this, he saw now, would be no more effective than the use of his fists.

“I can't think of a single reason why I should believe you,” Charlie began. “You came to my house under false pretenses, you've been dishonest with me since the day we met, you've accepted our hospitality and pretended to be our friend while you were spying on us. Why should I believe you?”