Something blue (12 page)

"Padgett's room was second from the end of the wing. Nobody in the end room on her side. So, the two rooms on the opposite side of the corridor, between her and-lhe door. Bartee wd^ldn't walk through the hospital."

"Listen," said Copeland, "I am willing to suspect . . . But even if he knew which hospital, how could he know which room?"

"I'll tell you," said Grimes. "What about the florist who called and asked if Emily Padgett was in there and if so in which room? And what about nurses who say, 'No flowers for Padgett/ ever?"

"Somebody goofed," said Copeland feebly.

"You don't beheye that," said Grimes. "You're just as human as I am. We both know Bartee killed Emily Padgett."

"If he did ..." Copeland raved.

"The rest is leg-work. Find some witnesses. If any visitor saw him and can identify. Let's short-cut this thing. You take room 409. I'll take 411. BeHeve me, they are the ones that count."

"Why didn't you tell John Sims?" asked the lawyer.

"Because," said Grimes, "better he get nowhere. Bartee must be pretty confident that nobody will ever prove he killed a woman seventeen years ago. But if he killed a woman

last Friday night, that's difiFerent. Sims knew the Padgett woman well. He couldn't hide that suspicion. Bartee could get nervous. And a killer may as well kill three times as twice."

"Poor Emily," mourned Copeland. "Poor Nan. Poor httle Nan."

"Everybody's going to be safer," said Grimes, "if we assume this Dick Bartee is mighty dangerous."

The phone rang in Johnny's room in the motel. Blanche Bartee seemed to be inviting him to dinner.

"I'd hke very much to come, Mrs. Bartee," Johimy's manners concealed his astonishment. "Thank you."

"Seven o'clock, Mr. Sims?" Blanche said in a hostess' voice, with no human warmth in it.

He agreed, hung up, breathed deeply in.

Maybe Nan needed him! He could see a vision of her in his mind. Nan subdued, shrunk back into her shy shell, forlorn, lost, wondering, feeling the doubt. The Bartees would be concerned about her. They would ask him to come to the house and they would want things clarified. They would want to know what Johnny had done to her.

Poor little Nan.

CHAPTER 13

The dining room, which lay back of the long parlor, was red and white. There was a red carpet and red damask hangings at the several long windows. The walls were white. The chandeher was crystal. At the oval table, Johnny sat on the left of his hostess, who, in white with peals, was discoursing on the subject of the climate here.

To his left sat the old lady, in black, attacking with greed and relish her cake.

Bart, at the head of the table, bent to Dorothy on his left.

Dorothy wore a soft apricot-colored dress and had her blonde hair swept high.

Nan (poor httle Nanl) was wearing red. A red velvet band held her dark hair back from her sparkhng face. Bonds, spun in the air, but almost visible, held Nan hugged close, allied in loving faith, to Dick Bartee, who sat between the two pretty girls, being charming.

In the parlor, before dinner, under the shock of finding his vision of Nan to have been about as inaccurate as it could be, Johnny had rallied. Well, then? Here he was. What was to be accomplished?

The old lady had not been in the parlor and he had been afraid she would not appear. For, he reflected, the old lady hked him. Maybe he could try again with her. Glean all he could before the politeness and the charm broke open and he was told why he had been asked. Or asked what he had been told. Or told to stop asking.

Now the old lady was here. But Blanche did the talking.

Bart was telling Dorothy something about the process of turning grapes to wine, as was done in a complex of buildings about two miles from the house.

"Some of ourjnechanical equipment is pretty old," he iSid. 'We are going to have to^replace it."

Nan said brightly, "Dick and I are going to replace it. We want to, don't we, Dick?" We. We—showing Johnny for the hundredth time that she was part of this family, belonged here, was gone from Johnny's reach.

Dick said, "Right. I seem to be marrying a peck of money. We could do the whole thing at one whack. Grandma is going to sell us her interest, cheap. Aren't you. Grandma?"

The old lady sucked coffee. "It would have gone to your papa," she said. "I'll give it to you."

"I never did see," said Dick, "why a wife shouldn't put her money into her husband's business."

He didn't send this as a question to Johnny directly. But Johnny answered.

"I don't eitlier," he said amiably. "That is, of course, if the business has been impartially analyzed by some reliable party. As an investment." Johnny smiled.

Johrmy had charm, if that was what was wanted.

"Naturally," Dick said. "And of course, the investment safeguarded with the usual rights."

''Of course," Bart said somewhat dryly. But Johnny saw a look of desolation cross his face. He turned to Blanche, "Before I forget," he said suddenly, "could you and would you tell me, Mrs. Bar tee, the names of the servants here seventeen years ago?"

Blanche brought her wits slowly to his question. She said, "I can't tell you. I wasn't hving here, then."

"Mr. Bartee?" Johnny leaned to ask his host.

"I was stationed East at that time," said Bart, "in the army." His reply was mild, unresentful.

So Johnny looked into the gray eyes across the table. "Dick?" he said easily.

"I doubt if I can remember," Dick said. "They came and went."

So Johnny turned upon the old lady. "Then you are the one to ask, I guess," he smiled. "You'll tell me, won't you?"

''Tell you what?^' She was munching the last bite. For the first time in all the dinner time, she looked at him.

"The names of your servants, seventeen yeai-s ago?"

Nothing seemed to occur to the old lady. Her face was blank. Bart said gently, "Mother forgets. Perhaps there are some records in my father's papers. Is there anything else?"

The tone of the question betrayed no sarcasm. But Johnny wasn't sure it held none. He thought, O.K. I'll be charming.

So he leaned back and he said pleasantly, "I'm sorry to talk my shop. But I wonder whether you understand. My job, you see, is to pick up descriptive bits, atmosphere, trifles that make a story more vivid and interesting. And it is a story. None of you, I suppose are, in any sense, writers? If you were, you'd understand. The sort of thing that Grimes turns out, you know, is closely alUed to fiction. I am a picker-up of color."

"The servants could give you color?" asked Dick.

"I would think so. Perhaps you don't realize," said Johnny, "what an unusual old house this is, for instance. Or how romantic your very business sounds to the ordinary reader. Or what a glamorous figure the old gentleman must have been."

They were listening. One pair of eyes disapproved of his blarney. Dorothy Padgett's blue eyes.

But Johnny went on, "Or how interesting a character you still are, Mrs. Baitee."

The old lady bridled. "I've had a life," she said. "I sit in the comer, nowadays. But I've had a life."

"I would tliink so," purred Johnny.

"Two husbands. Dead now. My daughter Nelly, dead. Nathaniel—all gone. Christy, too."

"Christy," said Johnny softly, "dead the way she died. The murder of a beautiful young woman in such a house as this. I wish I could make you see how fascinating . . ."

"You're not Hkely to do that," said Bart dryly.

"I don't think we should talk your shop any more, Mr. Sims," said Blanche. "Can't we discuss more cheerful . . . ?"

The old lady said, "Bart gone. Nathaniel, too."

Bart, Jr., said to his wife, "On the contrary, my dear.'' (She looked white.) Bart turned courteously. "Mr. Sims, you were asked tonight so that we could talk your shop, as you put it. We are interested in your project to the extent that we would like to put you straight. Isn't that what you said, Dick?"

"'Right," said Dick smiling.

"I wish for noting better," said Johnny promptly.

"Then, tell me," said Dick easily, "do you conclude that, in my youth, I killed Christy?"

"Clinton McCauley killed Christy," the old lady said promptly.

"To whom had you spoken, Sims?" asked Bart," ignoring his mother, 'l^esides Kate Callahan?"

"I had a very nice chat with your father, Mrs. Bartee," said Johnny to Blanche.

"How is Dad?"

"I stumble on things," said Johnny. "Forgive me. But you and Dick used to date?"

"Once or twice," she said. Her eyes were not focused on anything.

"I never stumbled on that," said Bart Bartee mildly.

Nan sat still and looked at the dishes. The disapproval had gone from Dorothy's eyes. They were alert.

"That's right, we did date once or twice," said Dick.

"A million years ago?" said Johnny genially. "As Miss Callahan would say. Fact is, this roommate of yours, Dick, told me you dated practically everybody."

"Roommate? Oh, yes. Old George. That's a trifle, all right." Dick laughed.

"He got out nights from that school," said Johmiy. "Fact, he was out that night. As you said you knew."

Blanche leaned back and hit the chairback with a thump. Bart said, "Mr. Sims, you want to make out that Mc-^ Cauley is innocent?"

"I beHeve that McCauley is innocent," said Johnny. Dick spoke. "Too bad that so many people are dead and gone and can't be talked to. You think McCauley is innocent?' But you didn't answer my question. Am I guilty?"

Bart said, "Dick's alibi won't hold? What about that, Dick?"

"Ah, well," sighed Dick, "George didn't want to admit being out. No more did I."

Nan looked as if she didn't know what anyone was talking about.

Bart said sharply, "Where were you, then?" Dick said, "We were young. It mattered, we thought. Nobody wanted to be expelled from school or get into trouble with our elders." He looked at Blanche who had no color supporting her make-up. "Fact is, I had a better ahbi."

"I asked you not to rake this up," said Blanche to her husband in a flat voice. "But you wouldn't stop. Dick was with me that night, while Christy was being killed." "Where?" Bart said icily. "At my house."

"Midnight?" Husband and wife spoke down the table's length.

"Yes. He threw sand at my window and I went downstairs. We talked on the side porch. He wanted me to sneak out and go dancing. It was too late, I told him. It was midnight."

Dick sighed. "A crazy kid. Old George got out and I . . . Well, seemed to be a point of pride there. Bartee wasn't going to stay in like a good httle boy, if the Ukes of George Rush had gone out."

This rang perfectly true to Johnny's ear. "But I'd made no plans, no date." Dick shrugged. "WeU, I tried to talk Blanche into a date. And no luck." He smiled at her.

"Why didn't all this come out at the time?" Bart spoke

to his wife alone. "A murder easel Your own father was counsel for the defense."

"Dad had forbidden me to see Dick any more," Blanche said. "I'd promised. Dad was in bed and the house dark— and I took care not to wake him." She ktoked angry. "The school gave Dick an alibi. Why should I?"

"Not to tell the whole truth," said Bart coldly, "is the same as lying."

Blanche winced. The old lady was eyeing her. Johnny turned suddenly upon the old lady. 'TDid you pick the pin off the floor of the study and give it to Nathaniel?" he said boldly.

Bart's eyes flashed anger.

But the old lady answered quickly, pulhng in her chin, "Of course not. That woman had it."

"What woman? Kate Callahan?" Bart stared at his mother. ''You knew that, Mother? But you swore , . ."

"Nathaniel didn't realize it was an heirloom," said the old lady. "I understood, I wasn't angry. I simply told him he had better get it back before his father found out. His father never understood Nathaniel. Nathaniel is gone," she added. ^

"Got it backl" Bart's voice was edgy. "How and when did Nathaniel get the pin back?"

Blanche said, "Oh, we got it back for him. Dick and I." Her face was bitter. "We broke the law. I've been afraid of that old fooHshness for too long. I may as Well stop 'lying' altogether."

The old lady giggled.

"You broke into Kate's?" said Johnny alertly.

"I have always known," said Blanche drearily, ''that Dick could never have done that thing, because he was with me. And I have always known that McCauley did do it. Because he was lying about the pin. I could have proved it. I asked you not to rake this up."

'Will you prove it, now, please?" asked Johnny.

'Why, the pin wasn't in McCauley's pocket. It was in Kate Callahan's dresser drawer."

'My father," said Dick, "wasn't made of the stuff for

i^l intrigue. He was in a panic. Grandfather would have been

rough on him. He begged me. Well, at the time, it was

nS quite a challenge. Nothing loathe, Blanche and I did a

spot of burglary. In a good cause." He was smiling. "Crazy kids."

"You found that pin in Kate Callahan's room after the killing?'' Johnny was brisk. "On the Sunday night?"

Dick's eyes shifted to his face. Dick said softly, "Yes, the Sunday night. You do get around." "I foimd it," Blanche said. "Took it?"

"Of course," said Dick. "Saved my father's life, you might say." Now, he sounded amused.

Bart said, "Blanche, you let your father go to court to defend this man, while you had this kind of knowledge secretly?"

"I was young," she stammered. "I'd disobeyed to go with Dick at all. And what we did was illegal. And anyhow I had gone away to school before the trial. I wasn't here." She raised her head. "And what diflFerence would it have made?" she cried, "It simply proved that Kate Callahan was lying. That McCauley had tajken Christy's pin. Everything I knew only proved what the jury beUeved, anyhow."

"You weren't the jury," said Dorothy Padgett intensely. "You weren't the judge , . ."

"Kids," said Dick sighing. "Kids don't snitch on each other. We had an adventure. And of course, it was for my father."

Nan said, "He did it for his father's sake . . .'' Johnny felt the hole in his mind, the sinking again. "FooHsh," said Dick. "Oh, well, at least everything is clear, now. Not so?" Johnny said, "Clear?"