Asey’s next question startled me as much as it startled Judy.
“You got a fuzzy bathrobe?”
“A what?”
“You know. A fuzzy bathrobe. Camel’s hair or one of those woolly ones. Something that’s got a fuzz on it?”
“No.” Judy shook her head. “My dressing gown is a long coat-like thing with wide sleeves. It’s cotton pongee.”
“Got a light coat? A polo coat?”
“Yes.”
“New?”
Judy flushed. “All my clothes are new. Mrs. Ballard had to clothe me when she hired me.”
“Mind bringing it out here?”
“Certainly not.” Judy got up and went into the house.
“Just what streak of fancy,” I asked wonderingly, “compels you to prowl around with fuzzy bathrobes and polo coats?”
“Why not? No funnier than paper clips an’ the Satterlees, are they?”
I kept quiet.
Judy brought back her coat, a perfectly ordinary light tan coat with raglan sleeves and large brown leather buttons.
Asey took it and fingered the cloth. “Easy shedder, ain’t it?”
“Easy what?”
“It’s fuzzy. Rubs off easy. Anyone in the house got on a blue serge coat?”
“Punch has.”
“Then bring him out, will you?”
Judy trotted off.
“Asey Mayo,” I said in exasperation, “what is this all about? Of course you’re having a lot of fun, but you might let me in on it. After all,” I added pointedly, “I’m not in the Satterlee class.”
“Nothin’ to tell, yet. I’m just findin’. Okay, Punch. Now, Judy, will you slip into this coat of yours? Thanks. Now, please just lean enough against Punch’s coat so’s your coat touches, will you? Thanks again. Now, Punch, you can take your coat off an’ go back. Don’t ask any questions. Hop along.”
I noticed that on the arm of his coat there was a little fuzz. It wasn’t really thick enough to be called fuzz. Rather, I decided, it was down.
Asey was busy opening the brown paper bundle which he had brought out with him. From it he produced another blue serge coat, very much like Punch’s except that it was double breasted. He looked at it a moment and then passed it over to me.
On both the shoulders between the lapel points and the sleeve seam, were similar patches of down.
“Yup, easy shedder,” Asey remarked. “Huh. I saw those bits on Gilpin’s coat—this is his coat, y’see—but I didn’t think much about ’em. Just thought he wasn’t careful about brushin’ his clothes. But Parker got to broodin’ about it an’ sent it along. Glad he did. So you saw Gilpin Tuesday night, Judy?”
“What makes you think so? After all, Asey, mine isn’t the only woolly polo coat in existence. There must be millions in the world.”
“Yup, but there ain’t more’n nine or so in this p’ticular portion of it.”
“Punch wore one the night he came,” Judy continued. “I’ve seen Hat Allen wearing one. Even Aristene Satterlee has one that’s almost a duplicate of this one of mine. In fact, she picked up mine by mistake last night before she went up to bed.”
Asey sighed and unwound his long legs. “Okay. I’ll go roust ’em out. I’ll get all the polo coats in the place an’ see what can be done about ’em.”
Judy sat down on the bench beside me.
“I s’pose, Vic, that at this point you’re rueing the day you ever hired me, aren’t you?”
“Why should I?”
“That’s decent of you. It’s the sort of thing you would say. I’d so hoped that I wouldn’t be dragged into this. Word of honor, Vic, I had nothing to do with Red Gilpin’s death. And if Asey—well, I hesitate to think of what your son will think of me then.”
“I’m hesitating to think of George’s reactions anyway. There’s only one thing, Judy. Tell Asey the truth. He won’t take the wrong side of things even if they sound bad.”
“Uh-huh.” My advice was not accepted with anything approaching enthusiasm.
Asey came back with three coats over his arm.
“Punch’s worn so thin it wouldn’t leave anything on fly paper. Hat’s isn’t much better.”
Industriously he rubbed the sleeves against Punch’s coat. “Nope, neither’ll leave a speck behind. Now for Aristene’s. It’s the same color, but it’s flannelly while yours is fuzzy. Nope, none of ’em works. Judy, you come here an’ prove this for yourself. Rub them three coats against Punch’s blue one, an’ then rub yours.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“Now, Judy,” Asey said coaxingly, “you did go out an’ see Red, didn’t you? Rubbed against him?”
“I did not go out. Besides, Asey, Red was killed around one, wasn’t he? And I was out of bed at three. There’s that to consider.”
“But you might of been out since one. Come on, Judy.”
“On my word of honor, I didn’t go out of the house.”
“But you knew Gilpin well before you come here, now, didn’t you?”
“What makes you think so?”
“Five lumps of sugar in his coffee, for one thing. An’ what you said yesterday mornin’, too. About no one knew what’d get raked up. Wouldn’t of said that unless you had somethin’ you didn’t want exposed to the light of day.”
“And,” I said, feeling that the necessity for telling everything should be impressed on her, “when Punch first spoke of Red, you asked if his name were Kilpin. Not in exactly the same tone you’d use if you really wanted to be reassured. Rather as though you wanted to make certain that it was Red, and didn’t want to ask directly.”
Judy smiled. “You’re sharp, Vic. I didn’t think that you noticed that.”
“Now, Judy,” Asey said, “look at this sensibly. If you won’t tell me the truth, you know durn well I’ll only make your life mis’rable ’till you do. An’ when it comes to p’sistency, I got the bloodhounds that tracked Eliza beaten miles. Look like a pack of nervous moskeeters when it comes to me.”
“You win,” Judy said quietly. “I should have told you when this first happened. Only, you see, I hadn’t made any mention of knowing Red when he first came or when Punch spoke of him, and after yesterday morning, it seemed sort of asking for trouble to tell. I did know Red. I met him two years ago in Boston while I was working for Silverman and Harris.”
“Don’t want to be awful personal,” Asey sounded as though he really meant it, “but just what was your relationship with Red? Good friend, or what?”
“ ‘Or what.’ ” Judy lighted a cigarette skilfully in the wind. “I’m another Aristene.”
“You—?”
“One of the discards. Not hands. I judge it must have been her hands that got Red. They’re perfectly beautiful, aren’t they? I was hair.”
“Hair?” Asey repeated.
Both of us stared at her head as though we’d never before been conscious of the fact that she possessed one. Her hair was brown, naturally wavy, and evidently she’d had it cut Monday by an expert barber, for it lay close to her head and the neckline really was a bit of artistry. But it wasn’t greatly different from the hair of a dozen girls I knew.
“You’ve a right to look surprised,” Judy went on calmly. “You see, my hair was long then. Very long. Mother always loved long hair and I never had mine cut till last January. It was long and wavy and,” she smiled, “if I do say so myself, it was rather nice. It didn’t have that bulky look. I wound it round my head like—”
“Like a halo,” Asey suggested, cocking his head to one side and looking at her critically. “Yup, I see how ’twould be. Make you look dif’rent from other girls an’ prob’ly more dignified. Not so much like a college girl all set for a frisky game of tennis.”
“That was it, Asey. Thanks for helping me out. I got my job because of my hair. Harris, my boss, liked long hair and wouldn’t employ girls who were bobbed. Aside from that little prejudice, he was rather a nice man. Well, I met Red at some amateur theatricals. He was giving his magician stunt and I was the sleeping beauty. We were doing ‘Beauty and the Beast’ for some children’s hospital benefit. I had a lot of that goldy dust in my hair and he sort of fell for me. Even with the dust brushed out, my hair still got him. That’s all. Only Red didn’t walk out on me the way he did on Aristene. We parted in a friendly, but none the less firm, manner.”
“When?”
“Last January. I might as well give you all the gory details. At the time I took it as hard as Aristene seems to be taking it now. But it wore off very soon. You see, we met just two years ago in June. From then till last January I saw a lot of Red. After a year I got to take him for granted; last fall I even had the idea that we were engaged. That’s one of the reasons why I didn’t feel so badly at first when I couldn’t get work. Though nothing had ever been said definitely about the matter, I assumed that when I really ran out of money, I’d marry Red. I wondered why he didn’t think of it when I lost my job.”
She stopped to light another cigarette.
“In January Red’s business came to grief. I was pretty near the end of my tether. I’d been out of work six months. It seemed time for a show-down, and so one night I asked him what we were going to do. He said he’d met up with a lad and he had some idea of taking to the road with a travelling show. He was going to make a living out of his sleight of hand work. Somehow he didn’t even mention me at all. I said, ‘What shall I do?’ ”
“He just rubbed his chin and said it was tough, wasn’t it, and then I began to wonder if I’d made a mistake in thinking that he cared anything about me. What he said next neatly dispelled any remaining notions on the subject. He said that he’d been neglecting his business and that was why he’d failed, even though this company he owed money to had no real need to force him.”
“Neglectin’ his business? Why?”
“I’m coming to that. He said, oh, so very casually, that he’d met a woman he’d fallen in love with and that she’d taken up all the time he should have spent at the store. At that point I knew I’d been all wrong, because I knew darn well I’d not taken up much of his time.”
“Who was the woman?”
“I don’t know. I never knew. I never even asked her name and I don’t think he would have told me anyway. I was, well, I was shocked. When you think a man’s in love with you, and you’re in love with him, and you fully expect to marry him, it’s a—a little startling—”
“To have him up an’ announce he’d let his business go to pot on account of bein’ in love with someone else,” Asey finished for her. “Huh, I can see that. An’ me thinkin’ Gilpin was such a nice feller!”
“Asey, he really was. You must remember, he’d never said a word about our being engaged or getting married either. I remembered that about that time. Of course I was angry clear through. But more because I’d made such a fool of myself than because of him. I said, keeping my voice as casual as I could, that I thought under the circumstances it might be well if we didn’t see each other again. He couldn’t see why at all. And really, he meant that. He didn’t. He said we’d always been good friends and there was no reason why we shouldn’t continue to be. But I insisted, and after a while, he agreed. He was very decent. Tried to get me a job with some friends of his. He’d always done his best to find work for me.”
“Sweet of him.” Asey kicked a stone over the banking and leaned forward to watch it bump down the cliff onto the beach. “Real sweet. Huh!”
“Don’t be so grim, Asey. I realized then and there that it was all my fault for thinking he was in love with me when all the time he just admired my hair. Red liked good-looking women, always, but just to admire ’em. Well, anyway, after we’d said a friendly good-bye, Red said with some bitterness that the irony of the whole situation for him was that, after years of admiring women, the one he’d fallen in love with was married, and loyal to her husband.”
“Served him right,” Asey said.
“I asked him what he was going to do about it and he said he didn’t know. He admitted that the woman liked him—”
“Followin’ the fashion.”
Judy laughed. “But I gathered that she just liked him. Nothing more. And it was a bit ironic, when you come to think it all out. Here women fell in love with Red, just right and left, and he just liked ’em. Then he went and fell in love, and for a change, the woman just liked him.”
“Nem’sis,” Asey remarked. “I’m glad of it, even if everyone seems to think that Gilpin meant right by all his Nells an’ that it was all the Nells’ fault anyhow. What’d he plan to do about it?”
“I asked him. He said he couldn’t do anything. She’d said he could write to her, if he wanted to. So he was just going to write her every day.”
“D’you mean to tell me,” I said, “that he was going to waste the only passion of his life out on a lot of letters?”
“Sounds foolish, doesn’t it, Vic? But that was it. From what he said, I gathered that he’d just gone romantic. Usually his kind does. All the old stuff—of wandering to the ends of the earth unless she needed him, giving up his life to her if she wanted it for a stair carpet. Always waiting and hoping and loving her. Practically troubadour. After he left I began to giggle a little. Next day I cut off my hair and promptly forgot all about him.”
“An’ you never knew the woman or even who she was?”
“Never.”
“Does it occur to you, Asey,” I said, “that it might be Edie?”
“Yup, only what price letters then? What d’you think, Judy?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. All I’m sure of is that she’s beautiful and loyal to her husband. Red didn’t seem at all annoyed about the husband. Didn’t know him and didn’t want to. Just discounted him entirely, as though he were a statue. Said he didn’t want anyone to think it a triangle, because his was not that sort of love.”
“Humpf.” Asey wrinkled his nose. “How ’bout Aristene? Why’d he run after her if he had this great passion?”
“Admiring Aristene’s hands wouldn’t have been Red’s idea of infidelity to his ideal. He probably thought of her hands in terms of the Great Unknown. Wouldn’t doubt it at all.”
“When Bill Porter was a kid,” Asey said thoughtfully, “he busted the last real windmill on this end of the Cape pretendin’ he was some Spaniard. Don Somebody.”
“Don Quixote?”
“Yup. Red must of had the same ideas. So you ain’t seen Gilpin since all that happened, Judy?”
“Not till Tuesday.”
“Why didn’t he recognize you?” I asked.
“Because I’d made up my mind not to recognize him. I didn’t. Red was no fool. When I didn’t fall all over him, he grasped the idea. I don’t think he particularly wanted me to be known to his friends, either, for that matter. Maybe because of Edie, or Hat. I don’t know. Anyway, as he left, he whispered to me that he wanted to see me later. I said no. Seeing him after all those months, I realized how little I’d really cared for him. I’d just been in love with that infectious buoyant spirit of his. Red was rather like a small child. He’d never really got to be an adult, and I’m inclined to think that most of his charm lay in that. Anyway, I said no. But just before I slipped into bed, I heard someone at the kitchen door. There he stood.”
“So you told us the truth about not goin’ out. He come in, huh?”
“That’s it, Asey. I didn’t want to let him in, but neither did I want him to set up a din.”
“What did he have to say?”
“He didn’t have a chance to say anything. I told him what I’d been through lately. Said Vic had taken me in without question and that I didn’t want to bring up the past. Most certainly he was not to wake her up or make her think I was carrying on. Told him I wanted the sleeping dogs left on the hearth and to run off. He did.”
“How’d the fuzz get on his shoulder?”
“Oh, he kissed me,” Judy said coolly. “He stood on the kitchen step. Just like a couple of servants. My arms were on his shoulders. I’d put on my coat because it was next to the couch and my dressing gown’d proved too light weight for the weather.”
“You say you didn’t love him,” Asey mused, “an’ then you kissed him. That’s just one of them fem’nine reactions, I s’pose?”
Judy chuckled. “Asey, you’re swell. It was just the easiest way to get rid of him, and he did so look like a naughty child when I’d sent him off.”
“Went right back to bed? What was the time?”
“About quarter after twelve or so. I’m not sure. I went back to bed and stayed there till after three. But that getting up had nothing to do with the murder. I’ll swear to that.”
“Won’t tell more?”
Judy shook her head. “It didn’t have anything to do with this. It would only mean involving some perfectly innocent people.”
“Wouldn’t be involvin’ ’em if they was in’cent,” Asey remarked.
“True. But I’ve told all, Asey.”
“Have anything to do with any of the troupe?”
“Don’t try to make me play twenty questions with you, you old sleuth! I’ve given you my word that all I’ve told you is the truth. It is. And it’s all I know about Red and what happened.”
“Okay,” Asey said after a pause. “We’ll save the rest till later. Run along an’ take the coats back.”
“D’you believe her?” I asked, after she had gone.
“I do. I knew yesterday mornin’ that she knew Gilpin. It was all over her face in big red letters. But I don’t think anybody would have been able to act the way she looked when I told her he was killed. I b’lieve her. Besides, she didn’t know she was comin’ here. Even if she met Red an’ felt dif’rent from what she’s told us, she wouldn’t of killed him. She’s too much of a lady. That sounds queer. But—”
“I know what you mean,” I said. “She’s capable of getting furious, but she wouldn’t have killed Red in a fury. She’s too reasonable and she sees too many sides. Her explanation of cutting her hair off and promptly feeling better, for example, proves that. I think she’s temperamentally unable to sustain anger. She could be mad just so long and then her sense of humor would come to the rescue and get the better of her. At all events, it seems to have got the better of her long before Tuesday night. Besides, how could she have bought the gun, or stolen it from anyone in the troupe, assuming, of course, that someone in the troupe had the gun? And you can’t connect her with the Guild letter.”
Asey nodded. “Yup. Well, we’ll be gettin’ back. Little more of the jigsaw puzzle in place, but I can’t say as I see outlines. Just a lot of sky. Say, I wonder about Aristene.”
“So do I.”
“We just took it for granted that she was at Nate’s on Tuesday night. I think we’ll run up an’ make a call on Nate Hopkins. Lord, look at Jennie! Syl’s got her so she’s dashin’ too. By gum, watch her sprint out here!”
Jennie was sprinting so fast that Asey had to grab at her to keep her from going over the banking.
Her face, usually red, was ashy white.
“S’matter? My God, Jennie, what’s wrong?”
“Asey—come quick—come quick! The—cellar! Someone’s groanin’. It’s awful. Oh, come quick, come quick!”