28

I crouched on the ground with my head down. I was vaguely aware of Keith telling someone, “She’ll be all right, I think. Could someone go for a cool rag?” I was holding on to his forearms, strong as logs in a swift stream. My head was spinning.

I recovered before I let him know, and kept my head down to think. I had somehow to get back to the Cabot house to find out what happened. I had to get rid of Keith. I had to go to the bank. I had to contact Edwin. First I had to get rid of Keith. He wasn’t about to leave me alone down here. I’d have to let him take me home. That was it. In his truck it wouldn’t take much time. But the police would be at the Cabots’ by now, probably, oh Lord, I would just have to tell Keith something.

“Keith, I’m all right, really,” I said, and rose. “Listen, I can’t go back with you now. I’ll explain later, all right? Just go on. Call the bank and say I’m ill this morning and will go in later. If Mr. Tetzel is there—oh—if he’s there—just tell them I’ll be in later.”

After many protests, I finally won, and sent him away, his expression doubtful and concerned. Poor Keith. Then I walked up to the corner of Washington and Beauregard. Cabot’s pearl-gray Overland was still in the garage. The police were then knocking on the front door. I hurried toward them. “I know the Cabots,” I said, “Mrs. Cabot left on a trip yesterday, and I believe their lodger Mr. Hope is—away, too.”

One of the officers said, “We’ll have to have a permit to go in there anyway even in a case of foul play like this one. Let’s go on. Do you know where Mrs. Cabot can be reached?”

“She’s in Corpus Christi in a hotel, I believe. You might check down at Mr. Cabot’s office if anyone’s there. They might know where she’s staying. Otherwise you could just check the bigger resort hotels for her name.”

“Hey, a little police work, eh?” some officer said, smiling at me. Then they laughed and went off. I expected people to stay around the house through the day, and had no idea how I’d ever get in there. Yet within a few minutes they dispersed. Now the grapevine would take root and travel before others, curiosity roused, came by. No doubt the Stuttgarts would be around soon, yet she had the new baby so maybe they wouldn’t after all.…

I walked around to the back of the house and waited till everyone had gone. Then I doubled back to the window where Edwin had once tacked recording machine wire. I didn’t see any faces staring at me from the windows of other houses as I crept in. Apparently no one saw.

I heard Scoop’s whimpering from the kitchen as soon as my feet touched the floor. He’d been left there all night, no doubt. Yet I couldn’t deal with him yet. When I was standing in Electra’s sitting room it occurred to me that it was odd how normal everything could seem. Her house plants were thriving as usual, her shawl thrown over the chair, the smell of Cabot’s cigar lingering, magazines lying on the table by the door, a copy of the Mexican Mining Journal on top. I had moved too quickly to reason things out; otherwise I probably would have knocked on Nathan’s door first, thinking him still in a heavy alcohol-induced sleep.

Yet I passed his rooms by and went carefully to the stairs. It seemed absurd to be so quiet, yet I hardly dared breathe for fear of making noise. On my way up I saw muddy footprints that preceded me like those of a host leading a guest to a chosen room. I checked two upstairs chambers before I finally found the right door, and pushed it timidly open. The first thing that caught my eye was the sight of blood spattered all over the wall behind the bed. “Foul play,” the officers had termed it. My God. I was biting my hand to fend off dizziness. I approached a little nearer. The bed was disheveled, and empty.

I looked around at the otherwise orderly room, left as though its occupants had a penchant for neatness. No clothing scattered about, or stockings on the floor, or shoes. Had Cabot brought a prostitute home with him, surely they wouldn’t have taken care to put away their things before they got into bed. Yet if Electra had been with Cabot, where was she now?

I stole quietly again down the stairs, poor Scoop whimpering away hoarsely—he must have been at it for hours—and scratching at the kitchen door. I could not make sense out of anything at all. I knocked dumbly at Nathan’s door for a long time before I fully realized he either wasn’t in there or in too deep a sleep to be roused, or …

I saw only enough to tell me what I had to know. As the door opened his stockinged feet came into view, hanging freely around three feet above the floor. The chair I’d sat in the night before lay on its side close by. I shut the door without gazing farther up, and leaned against it to get my breath. Then I realized I had to look again, to see if Electra was in there. I gripped the knob and pulled it slowly open again. I still avoided looking up too far, afraid of the sight of Nathan’s whole body, but went all around the periphery of the room twice. Nathan’s bathroom door was open and I could see enough of its interior to know Electra wasn’t there. Just before I pushed the hall door shut again I noticed tracks across the floor. I traced them to the corner, where Nathan’s normally immaculate shoes stood together, caked with mud.

Some source of strength that comes when needed took me over then, and got me through the balance of the day. I went to the kitchen and picked up Scoop, who was shivering and nearly delirious. I found some food and gave it to him, and filled a water bowl, which he emptied three times. I wanted to take him back with me to my apartment, but I was already beginning to reason more clearly. Proving my presence in the house would implicate me. I opened a kitchen window about a quarter of the way and let him out the back. If the police were curious, they could satisfy themselves he’d jumped out.

On the way back to the bank it finally occurred to me that I held the gun which probably had killed Emory Cabot and, perhaps, Electra as well. Things that Nathan said the previous night could lead to only one conclusion: he’d killed them. Then he’d killed himself. I had been crouching in the bushes even as he climbed the stairs to commit the murders. Then, in between, I’d knocked on his door, expecting to save the day.…

By the time I arrived at the bank, Tetzel had learned of Cabot’s death and left the office. There was a message I’d had a call from someone who left no name, but that the call would be replaced in the afternoon. That would be Edwin. Meantime I had to pretend to do my work as though I knew nothing except that a good bank customer had been found in the river, his body riddled with bullet holes. Everyone was talking about it, speculating, gossiping.

During one of my frequent trips to the percolator, I overheard a young man say he’d been to lunch with a buddy from the Express, and learned of the contents of Cabot’s closed hand. “It was one of those Onderdonk miniatures … they had to break the guy’s hand to get it out. Doesn’t that beat all?”

I felt suddenly nauseated. I barely made it to an alcove in the ladies’ room before vomiting. My body quaked so hard I had to sit back on my heels for several minutes, clasping my abdomen. I had the sensation that everything inside me was coming loose, and I started to weep, harder and harder until someone came in and noticed my crouched body beneath the alcove door. “Are you all right? Did you faint?” she asked. The unfamiliar voice served its purpose. I sniffed and got up, thinking, I’ve got to hold on.…

I numbly walked back to my desk and rearranged papers over and over again, trying to pass the longest day I had ever experienced. The only honest-to-goodness work I did was to give Tetzel’s inkwell a good scrubbing in the lavatory and refill it with fresh ink. Emory would hardly have been holding on to Electra’s portrait if he were in the company of someone else.…

Finally Edwin phoned from Washington. I took his number, told him to wait right where he was, left the bank, and went to a telephone a block away. I told him in detail what had passed the night before, and where we were at the moment. Finally, voice quivering, I added, “What do I do now?”

“Poor kid,” he said. “When you get home, hide the gun but don’t get rid of it. Remember during that last meeting when Cabot gave Tetzel something to keep? It may have been the paper, or a box, or even a key. Check around.”

“Paper? Box? What are you talking about?”

“The signed confession by Hope. You might need it. You’ve done a lot of running around this morning, and may well have implicated yourself—I’m not complaining, but you’ve left a lot of holes. Look in Tetzel’s safe for a key or an extra box or something.”

“Yes, all right. When will you be back?”

“I can’t get away for a few days and Hubert’s up here too. Things are popping right now over Zimmermann’s telegram. I’ve got to sit in on a meeting tomorrow and I’ll be tied up all the next day. Boy, what a time for a thing like this to happen.”

“No fooling,” I said, biting my lip.

“Tetzel’s going to think there’s some kind of plot to mess him up because of Cabot’s death.”

“Oh Edwin, I can’t even think straight. Why?”

“Because Cabot was carrying around the rest of those battle plans in his head, and Barrista is waiting for him in Mexico.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Be careful. I’d have Allan stick with you but he has to keep the telegraph covered. Oh, and one thing more—you can use my car if you need to. I wanted to tell you that before I left but I couldn’t reach you.”

“But I don’t know what I’d need with a car. I don’t know how to drive.”

“Oh, swell … the first thing you look for when you’re in a tight spot is a way to get the hell—I mean, get out of town. You’ve never been behind a wheel?”

“I drove my brother’s car once but I don’t remember anything—”

“It’ll come back to you if you get behind the wheel again. You might not even need the car, but just in case, it’s parked at my duplex on West Pecan, number 602. Got it? Tools are under the back-seat cushion. It’s full of gasoline.”

“All right. Oh, Edwin, I wish you were here.”

“Me too, Camille, but the whole world’s cratering up here.”

Down here, too, I thought.

Tetzel didn’t come back for the whole afternoon. I stayed after everyone had gone so that I could look for whatever it was that Emory Cabot had left with Tetzel. I thought once it might have been a copy of the battle plans for the revolution, but then that wouldn’t have done Tetzel much good at the time. When the floor was empty I went into his office and opened the big safe. There was no box, and no papers that I hadn’t seen before. I pulled out the key to the secret compartment and shoved it in. At first I found nothing except the picture. Then my hand touched a small key near the back. I recognized it as one that fits a safe-deposit box. I put it into my pocket, and was about to close the secret compartment again when I heard a noise behind me.

“Were you looking for something, Camille?”

My hard-stretched luck had finally played out. It was Tetzel.