Gentleman Called (18 page)

“No. It wasn’t just that.”

“You didn’t see him again, I suppose.”

“Only at the station. But I tell you, I cleared out myself as soon as the cops let go of me.”

“Didn’t the police frisk you, Buzzy?”

“Nope, and I’ve been thinking about it since you mentioned that expensive jewel. Why didn’t they?”

“I’ll ask them that myself,” Tully said, getting up. “But I think I know the answer. They didn’t know it was missing.” At the door while he signaled the guard that he was through talking to the prisoner, he said: “Do you want bail posted, Buzzy? I know a man who’d do it for me.”

The man thought about it. “What’s the weather like?”

“Cold as a witch’s kiss.”

Buzzy settled back in the chair, his hands behind his head. “I just think I’ll let nature take its course.”

Tully got back to his office in a hurry. It was almost as hard to get information about the Neville “suicide” from police circles as it would be from her family. Her death had come at the time her father had just been confirmed in an important ambassador’s post. The family home was in Norwalk, Connecticut.

Tully called the Chief Medical Examiner himself. Meanwhile he had Tommy Bassett call Mrs. Norris and get from her information on where Jimmie could be reached. Weston was within ten miles of Norwalk, and Jimmie was discreet, persuasive, had the D.A.’s office behind him, and was himself high born enough for the Nevilles to talk to—if they would talk to anyone.

Being a quick and efficient lad, so far as his brains took him, Bassett got Jimmie on the phone before giving it to Tully. Tully briefed Jimmie on the information he wanted: what the family knew, if anything, about the preacher, and the story on the jewel. He could play a melancholy tune to them—their daughter had not taken her own life likely, however willing they had been to accept that verdict.

Tully went then to see the Precinct Captain of the district wherein the suicide had occurred. It hadn’t taken them long to clean up the case at the time.

“Do you mean to say you didn’t even bring in the so-called missionary?”

“Godalmighty, the problem wasn’t bringing him in,” the captain exploded. “The problem was getting him out. He was in here every day for a week, volunteering this and that—nosing around to see if she left his mission something. Finally, we told him to go see the old man.

“That, he thought, was a good idea. The family might set up a memorial fund for the mission. That’s how we got him out of our hair.”

Tully shook his head. “Oh, the arrogant pup!”

W
HILE THE PROSPECT OF
the job he had agreed to do for Tully was not especially pleasant, Jimmie was glad of the diversion from the Adkins family. He had spent most of the day in their library of uncut books. Miranda had not spoken to him again. Teddy had cured her, apparently, of intimacies on his behalf. Teddy himself had disappeared after cocktails on Saturday night and had not been seen since. He was in the habit of doing that, his mother said, the family being too much for him. Jimmie had no trouble understanding that much about Teddy Adkins.

There was something very wonderful about Connecticut roads in late November, a brown and gray landscape that caught and held any chance bit of color as though waiting for the artist who would come and put it to canvas. And, alas, there was not much left of that part of the state that had not been put to canvas or to house or to antique shoppe…unless it was the few grand estates remaining.

Turning into the long poplared drive of the Neville estate, Jimmie wondered how the household would stand comparison with that which he had just left. He could remember having met Marjory Neville on a few occasions in the forties, a wild sort of girl then with an angular beauty that must have died a horrible death in her dissipation. He had not seen her for at least five years before her death. He recalled now, Helene Joyce had once remarked that Marjory Neville had a wonderful face to sculpt. And he could remember what Helene had said when she died: She had used and misused life for thirty-five years. Then she wrapped it up in an old rag and threw it away.

Later, having got Andrew Neville to the point where he would talk of his daughter even though it grieved him, Jimmie thought again of Helene’s remark when the old man said: “If only she had died a clean death.”

Jimmie could almost feel the weight of years that had come upon Neville in the wake of the tragedy. He had withdrawn from public life, indeed even from the company of intimate friends.

“I’ve been told, sir, that she completely rehabilitated herself. That takes a great deal of strength.”

“Without a great deal of strength she could not have persevered in so much debauchery,” the man said bitterly. “Oh, I am being less than honest, Jarvis. What turned my soul to acid, she deceived me at the end. I believed she was sincere. I believed her cured. I did not approve her mad venture of saving all the derelicts on the Bowery. And where she lived revolted me. But she had turned a dismal hotel room into a nun’s cell: scrubbed and bare, austere as charity…”

“You were there?”

The old man nodded. “She had caught me up with that child-like joy. She always could. And she had such faith in this young missionary.”

“Did you get to know him?”

Neville shook his head. “She had intended that I meet him, but he had gone on a begging expedition on that occasion—that’s what she called it.”

Jimmie hated to put this question, but no better time for it was likely to come: “Did you contribute to the mission, Mr. Neville?”

“Five thousand dollars. I had wanted to meet the young man first. But knowing the other men with whom she had at one time or other been involved, I was too well satisfied in merely knowing his profession.”

“What did she tell you about him?”

Andrew Neville drew his long fingers down his gaunt cheeks until he much resembled an El Greco painting. “That he was not handsome, but that he was pure. She had got an obsession on purity, you see.”

“Anything about where he had come from?”

“She said, I believe, that his family background was similar to hers. He came from San Francisco.”

“And his name?”

“Francis Drake. Not easily forgotten.”

Jimmie agreed. “A pirate, wasn’t he, on what might be called a continental level?”

“Yes,” the old man said.

“What about the gem, the ruby, Mr. Neville?”

The old man started up violently, and one of the corners of his mouth twitched. He had had a stroke recently, Jimmie thought. “It was some time later I discovered that was missing,” he said finally. “I did not want the affair revived. My lawyers had already paid heavily to have the tragedy quietly forgotten. I had the brooch removed from the insurance inventory.”

“You may be able to recover it now,” Jimmie said.

“I shall consider it a breach of faith if you suggest it, Jarvis. I have been painfully frank with you upon your promise of confidence.”

“Would you release me from that promise if it becomes evident that Marjory Neville did not commit suicide? That she was likely persuaded to take one drink to toast an engagement to marry this preacher, that she didn’t drink much at all that night, but was probably drugged?”

The old man covered his eyes with trembling fingers. “By him?”

“Yes,” Jimmie said. “She was likely murdered, and if at the time you had not been so willing to believe her beyond rescue, and so zealous of your own good name…”

“My own good name,” Neville interrupted, “my ambition, my fortune, my life—all of them are crumbled like dry leaves. Look at me. All there is left of me is yours to put on public exhibit—if you can prove that.”

“Thank you,” Jimmie said, and got up. “Please don’t disturb yourself. I shall go out by the garden. I expect a gentleman from the New York District Attorney’s office will come to see you when he needs your cooperation. He is a good man, Jasper Tully.”

Andrew Neville merely nodded. Glancing back at him, huddled as he was in a great leather chair, Jimmie thought he looked like something which had tumbled there from among the curios lining the walls of this, his trophy room.

Jimmie called Tully from a public phone booth.

“So he got five thousand dollars, and a ruby he gave to a scrub-girl,” Tully said in summary. “What was the name he used?”

“Francis Drake…like Queen Elizabeth’s boy. And he came from San Francisco, so he told her, from a family like her own.”

“A little truth, a little fancy,” Tully said. “I’m obliged to you, Jimmie. Come in the office when you can and take a look at the whole picture. It’s going to be one of the damnedest cases ever brought to trial—if we get the wily bastard.”

“You will,” Jimmie said. “Tully always gets his man.”

“But never his woman,” Tully cracked.

“I was wondering what happened between you and Mrs. Norris,” Jimmie said.

“You’d better ask her. I think she’s got another boy friend.”

“That will be the day,” Jimmie said.

A
S JIMMIE DROVE BACK
to the Adkins estate, he had ample opportunity to contemplate the modern condition of two ancient fortunes. Despite their obvious differences, the Adkins house and Neville’s had at least an atmosphere in common: decay was well set in in both instances—the old man dying alone, and the very old woman surrounded by decadent offspring. There was a deadly torpor among them all—except for old Georgianna Adkins and her son. In them a little torpor might have been desirable!

Just how, Jimmie wondered, was he ever going to persuade his senior partner that it would be a very fortunate day if they got out of court without raking through a veritable pit of disease. Jimmie now believed from incident, kitchen rumor and Eric that Teddy Adkins was far from what current society called “normal.” Nor was he Milquetoast or Casanova, either of which would have been defensible. Seeing him walk in that peculiar, light-footed way of his one might suspect now, Jimmie mused, that he had come by it from trying to stretch high enough to peep into windows. That was the feeling Jimmie was getting about him, and it was not good.

Jimmie drew a long and refreshing breath through the open car window. He had thought after his morning for ducks he would never enjoy fresh air again. Whether to have another go at Mama—that was the question. Could he possibly persuade her to settle out of court? Did he dare to prophesy that instead of winning either way, Mama was likely to lose either way? He might force Miss Daisy Thayer to the point where she would admit Teddy Adkins was not the father of her child—but if she had a mind to tell it—what did she have on the little dandy that she dared bring him into court on false charges? She had known a bad thing when she saw it, and she had known what it might be good for.

All in all, the week-end was not lost, considering the purpose for which he had come, Jimmie decided. He knew at least the slough through which he must wade and try to come out alive.

An ironic thought then struck him: he had abandoned politics to practice law and amongst the noblest of its advocates, a firm which would not touch divorce lest it compromise its proud title!

Teddy Adkins was standing in the driveway when Jimmie drove up. He wore a scarf around his neck, its ends flying to the winds, and his bald head as ruddy in the frosty wind as his cheeks. He looked full of health and vigor—exuberant as a Dickensian hero. What a shame it was, Jimmie thought, to have to crack this apple open, and it so beautiful just to look at!

“You’ll have Sunday dinner with us before returning to town,” Adkins said. “We have just time for a drink before it’s gonged out to us.”

“You look in fine fettle,” Jimmie said.

“Oh, I am, I am,” Adkins said. “I’m sorry to have abandoned you, Jarvis, but I may say now I had a matter of courting to attend.”

“Courting?” Jimmie repeated, wondering if he had heard rightly.

“Oh, yes,” said Teddy blithely. “And I have every reason to be confident in the success of my suit.”

“You’d better attend one suit before pressing another,” Jimmie said dryly.

“Ah, dear man, this time all is different. I have found a woman with whom I can be myself, whom I shall persuade to love me for my own sweet sake.”

Poetic anyway, Jimmie thought. And all his calculations of the man were going a-kilter again. He swore to himself and wished profoundly that Tully’s mission had not delayed his departure from Connecticut. If he had left soon enough he would have gone out on a straight line at least. “You don’t seem to have any trouble finding them,” he said.

“The women?” Adkins threw back his head and laughed with the grotesque glee of a mad child. He wiped his eyes. “An exaggeration that, of course, dear man, but a flattering one.” His sister Miranda met them at the door. Teddy took her arm. “Mr. Jarvis has just paid me an outrageous compliment,” he said.

They went in to where the rest of the clan were gathered for the daily ritual of sherry or madeira in the great parlor which, Jimmie noticed, smelled of dogs and woodsmoke—the most masculine thing about the place.

“Mr. Jarvis and I will have whiskey, Timsey.” Adkins turned to Jimmie. “You prefer Scotch, don’t you?”

Jimmie nodded, watching Timsey.

Timsey said: “Whiskey?” and let his eyes run along the floor to Mama’s feet and up then to her face. Having found acquiescence there to Teddy’s wish, he said, “Yes, sir,” with sublime submission.

The whiskey, Jimmie suspected when it did arrive, had been watered. He would like someday to pick Timsey’s mind, he thought, if he could find anything small enough to pick it with.

Jimmie lifted his glass and toasted with abandon: “To victory with honor.”

“To our own dear Teddy,” Miranda said sickeningly.

Teddy turned on her. “You had better swaddle your own son, Mandy.” He pushed his chubby face into hers. “Teddy is going to run away from home.”

“Hear! Hear!” the old lady cried.

Miranda whirled about on her mother. “Why didn’t you wean him as a child then? You’re trying to thrust him out in the world now, to harden him up like—like something or other before you die.”

Miranda’s outburst dried up, and the whole room seemed brittle with age and dust, as though any words loosed in it would themselves fragment and disintegrate.