Harry Bryce had come back, all right. He had come from the sea, and he had been in no hurry. He was never going to be in a hurry any more. He had all the time there was. He lay waiting, quite patient and relaxed, his feet still in the shadows, his body still a part of the lazy rhythm of the sea.
Job Crandall stood beside him. He was not doing anything. There was nothing in particular to do. Vickers knelt in the wet sand.
Crandall said jerkily, “We went out on the terrace, the five of us. We were talking about Harry, wondering where he was. I was leaning on the wall, looking at the water, thinking about going for a swim, and I saw something. It seemed to float out from under the landing. I thought it was driftwood at first, and then – I called Bill, and we watched it...”
Bill Saul said, “He must have been caught under the landing, Vick. Look at his face.”
Vickers nodded. “Barnacles.” Bryce was lying partly on his right side, his head tipped comfortably over.
Vickers pointed at the back of it. “The description of that has nothing to do with barnacles. The phrase, I believe, is ‘crushed like an eggshell.’”
Crandall said, “I wonder how it happened?”
Vickers glanced up, from Crandall to Bill Saul. He ran his fingers along the side of his face where the scar was and said pleasantly, “Yes. I wonder.”
For a long moment there was no sound, no motion on the beach, nothing but the whispered underscoring of the sea. Harry Bryce watched the tiny movement of a pebble on the very edge of macrocosmic force, and thought about it, whatever thoughts a dead man thinks. Michael Vickers looked up, half smiling, and Saul and Crandall looked down, and the sea wind went by and was not interested.
Bill Saul said dryly, “If I know Harry, he was making passes at a mermaid and she slapped him with her tail. We’d better go call the police.”
“Police,” said Vickers. He got up. “Oh, yes, the police. I’d forgotten there were such things.” He leaned over and caught Harry Bryce by the sodden collar of his white dinner coat and dragged him without effort above the water line. “Poor old Harry.”
“It must have been accidental,” Crandall said.
“Why?”
“Well, it... He was drunk the last I saw of him. Really drunk. He walked out there and fell and hit his head...”
“Possibly.”
“Well, Christ! He was our friend, Vick! Why...?”
Vickers said, “There were a million people here last night, more or less. They weren’t all his friends. Besides, Job,” he went on, “we were all friends in Mexico, the four of us...”
“What’s Mexico got to do with it?” Crandall’s face flushed. He was abruptly shaken with anger. “God damn it, Vick, you’re just spoiling for trouble, aren’t you? Coming back like that, scaring the bloody hell out of the lot of us, and then going around acting like something out of Macbeth, practically accusing us of...”
“Go on, Job,” said Vickers softly. “Accusing you of what?”
“Christ knows! And now this has to happen. We’ll be up to our necks in policemen and notebooks and newspaper reporters... Oh, Lord, what a mess!”
Vickers smiled. “You’re right, Job. Fun and games for all.” He looked over at Bill Saul and laughed. “You said this was going to be fun.”
“Uh huh.” Bill Saul narrowed his eyes in speculative appraisal of Vickers’ face. “But I’m beginning to wonder about that sense of humor I mentioned. I think I like yours even less than mine.”
“Wait and see.” Vickers started to turn away, then paused and looked down at Harry Bryce. “D’you realize that nobody has said a word about being sorry?”
Saul turned to Crandall. “Are you sorry?”
“Oh, for Chrissake!”
“I don’t think he’s sorry, Vick. I’m not sorry. Are you sorry?”
Vickers said slowly, “I don’t know yet.” He scowled at Harry Bryce a moment, then looked up again at Bill Saul. “But when you come right down to it, Bill – isn’t friendship a wonderful thing?”
“Perhaps. I suppose a lot depends on the friends.”
“Yes. And we were none of us men who made friends, were we?” Vickers’ eyes were somber, far away. “There was really only one thing that held the four of us together. One person.”
Bill Saul said, “You’ve learned a lot in four years, Vick.”
Vickers shrugged and walked back toward the steps. Bill Saul followed. Job Crandall stopped on the way and was sick.
The women were clustered around the top of the steps. Angie was with them, keeping them under control. Harriet screamed, “What is it? Who is it?”
At the foot of the steps Bill Saul said quietly, “Vick.”
“Yes?”
“Did you see Harry last night?”
“D’you think I did?”
“I just wondered, after what you said at the boathouse.”
“What did I say?”
“I asked you where Harry’d got to, and you said. ‘I don’t know, only that he’s gone from here.’ “
Vickers’ eyes were cold, quite empty of anything but a certain amusement. Saul tried to probe them, and gave it up.
Vickers said, “That’s a fascinating thought, Bill. I can see that people are going to be duly fascinated.” He went up the steps. The women closed in on him, shrilly vocal. Only Angie was pale and huge-eyed and quiet. He put his arm around her.
“It’s Harry Bryce,” he said. “Somehow he’s got himself killed.”
Angie looked up at him, quickly, and then away. He felt her tighten in the circle of his arm.
Harriet said loudly, “Oh my God. Oh, poor Harry!” She ran to the wall and stared down at the mortal driftwood that was Harry Bryce. Bill Saul’s blonde echoed, “Poor Harry,” and yawned.
The fourth Mrs. Harry Bryce, now Jennie Bryce, widow, sat down. She said, “You mean Harry’s dead?”
“Quite,” said Vickers.
“You mean now I don’t have to get a divorce?”
“I shouldn’t think that would be necessary.”
“Jesus Christ,” said Jennie reverently. ‘I’m worth nearly a million bucks.”
Bill Saul had come up. Crandall was with him, looking green and shaky. Harriet turned away from the wall and rushed back.
“Aren’t you going to do something for him? I mean, you can’t just leave him there, sort of – well, thrown away!”
Vickers said, “I believe the police prefer not to have their corpses messed with, and I don’t imagine Harry minds at all. Suppose you all go and get a drink...”
“Police!” cried Harriet. “Police!”
“Harriet. Go get a drink. Bill, take over, will you?” Vickers leaned over briefly and patted Jennie’s bare brown shoulder. “Bear up, old girl. I know it’s a shock.”
“Yeah.” Her face was blank and rather dazed. “It sure is.” As Vickers went away, taking Angie with him, he heard her murmur, “A million bucks!”
In the living room Vickers paused long enough to telephone the police. Angie stood perfectly still beside him, waiting. When he was through she went with him to the bedroom and closed the door, shutting out the tense babble of voices from the terrace.
Vickers said, “You were with Harry last night, down at the boathouse.”
“Yes. Not for long. He was very drunk and unpleasant, and I told him to go away. He did.”
“Just before you took the boat out.” It was a statement, not a question.
“No. Some time before that.”
“How long before?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t keeping any track of time.” She studied Vickers. Her face was bloodless under the tan, drawn tight. “Were you down there, Vick?”
“I saw you going aboard the cruiser. It was too late to call you back. There was no sign of Harry then, except his cigarette case on the lounge.” He paused. “Why did you take the boat out, Angie?”
“Because I wanted to. It’s the only way I can sleep, sometimes. I anchored off the point and stayed there.”
“Strange,” said Vickers. “The hostess running out on her own party.”
She made a gesture of disgust. “That wasn’t a party.”
“Quite. But it was in your house. You must have invited the people. And you evidently didn’t want the servants around.”
“Do you blame me?” Angie went over to the table and picked up a cigarette. “That was some of Harry’s crowd. He inherited them along with Jennie.”
Vickers said softly, “But they made such a lot of noise, didn’t they? And they were all so beautifully blind drunk.”
Angie put the cigarette down without lighting it. Her eyes were narrow and bright, hard yellow. She took two steps toward Vickers.
He said affably, ‘I’m only thinking of the police. They’re going to ask all these questions too, you know.” He paused. “If I were you, darling, I shouldn’t tell the constabulary about having been with Harry. Bill and I are the only ones who know you were, and I shall speak with Bill.”
Angie had stopped, but she had not relaxed. “And if I were you,” she said, “I shouldn’t tell them I was there, either.”
His mouth curved in a slow, one-sided smile. “Right.” He looked at her. “You’re angry.” And then, softly, “You’re marvelous.”
She did relax, under his kiss.
“D’you think I killed him, Angie?” His lips brushed her neck, the tip of her ear.
“I don’t know...” She was barely whispering. “Perhaps you heard his voice, and it was the same one. I don’t know you any more, Vick.”
“Nor do I know you.” She was slender and small in the circle of his arms, but wonderfully alive, wonderfully strong. Her black hair was fragrant, her skin was sweet as a flower in the sun.
“You see, my darling,” he murmured, “it’s quite possible that four years ago you said to Harry Bryce, or Bill Saul, or Job Crandall, ‘Look. You are going on a long cruise with my husband, whom I would like never to see again. If by chance anything permanent should befall the son of a bitch, you may have what you will in payment.” His arms tightened. “Christ, that would be worth a murder...”
“Vick.”
She pressed him back, thrust him away. Not harshly, not in anger. He could not read her eyes. Her face was like a page on which nothing is written.
“Vick,” she said. “There’s a car coming. That’ll be the police.”
But it wasn’t. It was Joan Merrill and a short, shrewd, bald-pated man named Sessions. They came in Sessions’ car, and the back seat contained a butler, a cook, and a shapely young person who appeared to be a maid, but only vocationally. She was blond, and Bill Saul made sure that she got safely into the servant’s wing.
Sessions caught Vickers’ large lean hand in his two small plump ones and wrung it.
“Gosh, it’s good to see you again! I’d about given up hope. What happened to you, Vick? Where have you been? Why didn’t you let us know you were coming? How is everything? How are you?”
Vickers permitted himself a faintly cynical smile. “Don’t overdo it, old boy. You can’t be that glad to see me, not unless absence has made your heart grow much fonder than it ever was.” He led the way from the terrace into the living room. Everybody was there, sort of milling about, roosting briefly on some bit of furniture, then rising to mill again. Vickers’ deep voice carried clearly.
“Answering chronologically, I got a bang on the noggin that blanked me out for some time; I’ve been in South America; I preferred not to send word that I was coming; everything’s lovely except that we’ve a corpse on our hands and no good explanation for it; and my physical condition seems to be adequate.”
Joan Merrill said flatly, “A corpse.” She did not seem to have slept at all. She did not seem particularly surprised.
Angie said; “Harry Bryce. Nobody knows how it happened.”
“You got here just in time for the police, Joan,” Vickers told her, smiling. Then, to Sessions, “Are you still my business manager?”
“Naturally. I’ve taken care of everything while you were gone.”
“I still own a department store?”
“Of course. And I may say that business has improved nearly one third...”
“That’s fine. Then you won’t need me back for a while.” Vickers went out to find Bill Saul.
Joan Merrill caught Angie’s hand. Her eyes were worried and questioning and devoted. She did not speak.
Angie’s fingers gripped hers. They were trembling. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “Everything’s upside down. I... Joan...” The last was a cry for help.
Joan murmured, “Of course, Angie. Always.” Her hand rose casually, almost furtively, to stroke Angie’s hair.
A car came into the drive below. Two cars. Three, and one had a heavier motor and no windows in the back. The passenger who rode in that one would have no need of fresh air or a view. Feet began to climb the steps to the terrace. There was a sudden dead silence in the living room. Vickers came back with Bill Saul. A slight nod passed between them. There was something strangely alike about their faces, mocking, inscrutable, and somehow, vaguely, sad. The door chimes sounded. The butler, whose name Vickers did not know, crossed to the door and opened it. He spoke briefly, then turned to Angie.
“Madam,” he said. “The gentlemen from the police.”