Alex drove ahead of us through the early morning. The dew was sparkling on the green fields. The air was sweet with the smell of grass and flowers, and the half-sized leaves were a tender luminous green in the slanting light of that hour.
“Now we have everything,” Patrick said. There was a slight bitterness in his voice. “We have the dead rat, Guy Adriance. The jealous suitor, Steve Banning. The tough father of the pretty girl. The inscrutable Aunt Faye. The dizzy dowager Kitty. And we even have the usual confession.”
“Do you think Alex told the truth?”
“To the best of her knowledge, I suppose.”
“You actually think she shot Guy Adriance?”
“I think she thinks she did.”
“Then she’s morally guilty,” I said. “Whatever else.”
“Yes.”
“What would you do in that case?”
“My duty, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, Pat! It would break her father’s heart.”
“You won’t give her away?”
“Of course not. I’m not the Kentucky law. I’m not even a detective on a case. I was called in twice and kicked out twice, see. So, if Alex asks me what she ought to do I’ll tell her she’s a big girl now and has, I presume, a conscience. That is, “in due time. After I make sure about Casey. You don’t think I’d spoil my vacation trying to find out how Guy Adriance got killed, do you?”
“My vacation specially, darling,” I said.
“Nobody will believe Alex,” I said. “And Guy Adriance deserved what happened to him.”
Then Patrick said, so I knew he hadn’t got the Adriance thing off his mind, either, “Two shots were fired. At least there were two empty shells in the gun. I wonder if the doctors will find two bullets in the body when they do the autopsy.”
“Do you really think they might both have entered at the same place?”
“It was a big wound. If fired in rapid succession it could happen they’d be close enough together to make only one wound. But …”
“But what?”
“I really don’t know, Jean. Forget it.”
He’s keeping something from me, I thought. But there was no time to probe more now. We were already at Murray Farm.
At the Murray house we joined Faye and Rob on a glass-enclosed porch where they were having breakfast. The windows were open. In the immediate foreground was the grove, with the brook edged as we could see by day with purple iris and yellow tulips, and on beyond we could see the wide rolling acres of the farm, with the occasional white red-trimmed barns, the endless fences, the trees standing here and there in the pastures, and the long-legged horses everywhere in the paddocks. Two of Rob’s famous stallions, now retired to stud, were being exercised on a track near the stallion barn.
Faye was again in jeans and a gingham shirt, and she had been up since dawn.
“Catching up on my target practice,” she said. “Sit down.” She rang for the colored maid who set us places, in spite of the fact we had just had breakfast, and even while we protested we were drinking more coffee and eating the most delicious little corncakes. “The trick is,” Faye said, “to keep the batter thin. The edges must be lacy when they’re done. I’ll give you the recipe. It’s a secret of the cook’s, so don’t pass it along to anybody around here.”
“What’s a secret?” a cultivated voice called, and Kitty Adriance walked in. She went right on talking, “Oh, Faye, how lovely your brook is. Rob, wouldn’t it be possible to divert my brook so it came directly through the lawn? I’d love a vista like yours. It is the one thing my place lacks.”
The men had risen. Rob held her chair and made no answer.
Kitty looked very pretty in lilac gingham. Every blue-white curl was in place. Her makeup was perfection and that must have taken time. It was warm for the season, I should have said, and her only concession to early morning chill was a pale blue coat, which she dropped on a chair before joining us at the table. As the maid set her a place she admitted being hungry.
“I couldn’t eat a bite at home,” she said. “So close to—what has happened. But I’d love some coffee. Yes, thank you, orange juice, and some bacon with some of Virginia’s delicious corncakes. Would you think it too, too awful, Faye, darling, if I don’t wear mourning? It’s too dreadful in Kentucky in the summer and it simply projects one’s grief to others, don’t you agree?”
“Black does not become you, Kitty,” Faye said.
“Oh, that isn’t it, darling. Not at all. I’m a bit old-fashioned about the conventions, though. I could wear gray, of course, and white, and perhaps lilac. I do like my bacon crisp, Alice,” she said to the maid who had set her place and was leaving the porch.
Rob was looking at her, unbelief in his blue eyes.
“I must say you’re taking it calmly, Kitty.”
“I cried all night.” There were indeed signs of weeping around her eyes. They were merely well covered over. “The doctor says it will come back if I don’t watch it. The hysteria, I mean. He says I must control myself and to remember that Guy did not suffer, that there is no pain from a gunshot at the time it occurs. Shock mercifully prevents the pain.”
“I suppose he knows?” Faye said. It was her voice that showed an edge this morning, not her brother’s. This made twice, the crack about black, and now this.
“That I agree with,” Rob said. “I hope he’s permitted to assist with the post mortem on Casey. Then we’ll get the facts. There aren’t many general practitioners like him, not any more.”
Kitty said, “My tulips under that window are utterly ruined, Faye. I do hope the florist can set some others in, some potted Darwins ready to bloom, otherwise my house will be disqualified for garden week.” She said to me, “The finest places in Fayette County will be on display early in May, the way they’ve long done in Natchez. And about time, when you consider how beautiful our houses are here, and how historical. You will do as I ask about the brook, won’t you, Rob? Oh, not now, but later, perhaps in the fall. It can look natural, if it is properly done, and it would add immensely to my garden. Then I could glass in the porch, like this, and have my breakfast out the year round. My view is quite as nice as yours, really. If there were a brook.”
“The view is all right,” Rob said. His voice was not unfriendly. He wasn’t openly against her the way he had been last night. He wasn’t letting her irritate him beyond control—not this morning. He was Southern manhood deferring to Southern womanhood. She was inviting trouble every time she opened her mouth. Rob wasn’t having any.
Through a partly open door I could see at an angle the dining room, with its big Duncan Phyfe table and chairs and sideboard. On beyond I could see a segment of the graceful white-painted banisters in the front hall.
“Rob, I want to apologize for something,” Kitty said. “Last night, I annoyed you so….”
“Forget it!”
“Oh, I will. But I have sometimes thought that Texas changed you. Now I know I was wrong.”
“People don’t change,” Rob said.
“Oh, yes, they do,” Faye said. “Or maybe they just become more definitely what they really are.”
“I agree there,” Patrick said. “Are you a good shot, Faye?”
“What an odd question!” Kitty said.
“She’s the best,” Rob said. “You should watch her at target practice sometime. This morning, Faye?”
“Not this morning,” Faye said. “I’m not too good this morning, though I spent half an hour at it before breakfast trying to steady my nerves, which were a bit jumpy when I got up. If I must say so, usually I’m pretty good.” She gave herself a little pat on one shoulder.
Kitty got the floor again, and said, to us, ‘‘I do hope you will stop in again and see my house when it is really nice. I’ve had it cleaned up already this morning. My Negras went to work on it the minute those patrolmen left. I had them remove everything which reminded me of my poor son. I suppose this was cowardly, but I couldn’t bear seeing his things, I couldn’t, really.”
Faye said airily, “It depends on your point of view, I suppose. I knew a woman once who had all her deceased husband’s suits made over to fit her. She had the jackets cut down and made skirts out of the trousers and every place she went she told everybody how she happened to have those mannish suits.”
What Faye said had such deliberate cruelty my flesh crept. But Kitty replied, and her voice was sweet as honey, “That must have been in Texas, darling. Strange things seem to happen in Texas.”
This feud is the real thing, I was thinking. Both of them are dangerous. The men started talking horses. Apparently neither had rated the female talk as important.
At that moment I glanced through the dining room to the hall and saw Alex coming slowly down the stairs. The telephone rang and she turned and darted up again as Rob himself rose and answered on an extension in the dining room. Alex had gone to listen in, I thought.
Faye said, to us, “I do hope you managed to get to bed, finally.”
“Oh, yes,” I said.
“It was horrid of me to call you out to my house at such an hour,” Kitty said. “Of course, I did not mean to disturb your poor wife.”
“She wouldn’t stay away,” Patrick said.
Faye’s brows lifted faintly. Had she not known that then? Didn’t she know about our nocturnal visit to the Adriances?
Kitty said to Faye, “I tried first for the doctor, darling. He was out on a call. After waiting quite a while and not wanting to drag in some outside doctor I thought about Mr. Abbott. Most presumptuous of me, too.”
“Not at all,” Patrick said. “I was happy to be of some service, Mrs. Adriance.”
“You’re very kind,” Kitty said.
Rob came out. “It’s Gusdorf. He wants to speak to you now, Kitty.”
“You’ll find more privacy on the extension in the den,” Faye said.
“I shall merely close this door,” Kitty said, still sugary, and she went into the dining room and closed the door.
Rob said, “They’ve done both autopsies. Casey died from a bullet in the brain. Adriance died from one in the body. Both were suicides, they think.”
“I’ll be darned,” Patrick said.
Rob said, more loudly than was necessary, “If they want to call them suicides, it’s all right by me.”
“Nobody questioned that, dear,” his sister said.
“I didn’t like Pat’s tone,” Rob said. Then he said, “I’m sorry, Pat. I guess I’m touchy. There isn’t a hand on the place that can handle that big red colt. Casey had spoiled him plenty. He’s not only no good for the Derby, we may never keep him lined up. There is only a handful of top-notch trainers and you can bet your bottom dollar that they are all tied up. For this season, at least. I haven’t got a ghost of a chance to replace Casey till the beginning of next year and—well, in a sense I can never replace him, of course.”
He was getting excited again.
“What did they say about the gun that killed Adriance?” Pat asked.
“Nothing. Gusdorf just wanted to tell me the findings of the autopsy. He was dying to get to Kitty, so he more or less brushed me off. He did say that there was something they found which might mean that Casey had some special reason to shoot himself. Something besides me.”
“Gusdorf didn’t say that, I hope?” Faye flared.
“Oh, no,” Rob said. He sounded tired. “I think he only wants to make me feel a little better. Everybody knows that Casey and I had words last night. I told it myself.”
Faye said, “Well, let’s be grateful for the other thing. It saves the world a lot of trouble to be rid of a man like Guy Adriance. He never consciously did a decent thing in all his life.”
“Those are hard words,” Patrick said.
“They’re true words!” Rob snapped out. “She speaks the God’s truth.”
“Well, we’d better not say it in public, dear,” Faye said.
“I know that,” Rob said. “I’m not saying it in public.”
“Then it’s finished,” Faye said. “We’ll never have to mention it again.”
Her face was a puzzle. She was holding her coffee cup in both hands, looking down at it, her lashes like a girl’s. Her hands were shapely, tanned, with long fingers, with a bold red enamel on the long oval nails, a bold red like her lipstick. Strong color suited Faye Murray. She was brave and knew what she wanted. She liked strong clear colors, trim clothes, bold facts, and she wouldn’t ever have her mind full of gimcracks, like Kitty Adriance’s.
Rob went on.
“Guy Adriance was full of champagne up to the neck. They think he was terribly drunk. Kitty is not to be told this, by the way. They found another champagne bottle in the kitchen wastebasket and they think he had drunk one fifth and was on the second when it happened.”
“I saw that bottle,” Patrick said.
“Did you go to the kitchen?” I asked.
“You don’t think I spent all my time in Kitty’s boudoir, do you, pal? Sure. I took a quick look at the joint. Upstairs and down. I was really searching for what he had used for an ash tray.”
“She said he used the fireplace,” I said.
Patrick said, “The cigarette ashes and butts were all dumped together in the ashes. From some container or other.”
“Did you find that in the kitchen too, Pat?”
He nodded.
“Shush, here comes the kid,” Faye said.
Alex came in, fresh in a pink dress. She kissed her father and her aunt and pulled up a chair. No, she had breakfasted.
Kitty came back, drying tears.
“Carl is looking after the arrangements,” she said. Alex had a queer look in her eyes, which sought out Patrick’s, as Kitty said, “Alex, darling, how are you this morning?”
“All right,” Alex said. She did not look at Mrs Adriance.
“You must eat, my dear. We have to get over so many things in this life. But of course you children still have that to learn. Carl said not to be worried if the patrolmen hung around some, even though to all intent and purposes the case is disposed of as suicide. There were still one or two points, he said. Somebody had tied a horse to the fence along the bridlepath last night. After the rain early in the evening there were tracks and they want to know who …”
Alex said, “Excuse me, Aunt Kitty. Faye, if you do have an extra cup of coffee …”
“Sure enough, honey. I’ve even got the cup. I thought you would show up eventually …”
“Who told Alex?” Kitty asked. Faye said she had, of course, and Kitty gave her an odd glance, and said to Alex, “I wouldn’t wear mourning, dear. It’s …”
“Why on earth should I?” Alex asked.
Kitty frowned. “Forgive me, dear. But being practically in our own family, and engaged …”
“We were not engaged,” Alex said.
“But Guy told me so, Alex. That was the reason for the champagne. He said …”
“Guy always drank champagne. He thought nothing else was good enough for him, Aunt Kitty.”
“Alex, dear child! Oh, I know you’re upset and all and perhaps you had a foolish quarrel…. Oh, that explains everything! Of course. It was suicide! He did it impulsively because …”
“Stop it, Kitty!” Rob shouted.
Faye spoke warningly, “Rob?”
“And who are you to talk, Faye, after the way you baited …”
“Best thing Mrs. Adriance can do at this time is to get whatever comes to mind off her chest,” Patrick said fatuously. “We’ll all understand it, naturally.”
Kitty repaid this gallantry with a glance like two stilettos.
“Rob is right. I talk too much. Forgive me. And I must run. By the way, Mr. Abbott, the doctor asked if you and Mrs. Abbott would be so kind as to meet him at my house in half an hour?”
“Of course,” Patrick said. The men were on their feet again and Patrick was now holding Kitty’s pale-blue coat. “Many happy returns of the day,” he said, to Kitty.
Her glance was an expressionless stare for a moment, and then she broke into simpering smiles.
“Faye, darling! I’d forgotten. Happy birthday!”
“Pat’s a meanie,” Faye said. “I wasn’t going to pay any attention to it. You shouldn’t, at forty-three.”
“You should when you look only thirty-three,” I said.
“Poor me, with my white hair,” said Kitty. “Good-bye now.” She departed.
“I hadn’t forgotten it, Faye,” Alex said then.
“You’re nothing but a ghastly detective!” Faye accused Pat. “Just how did I give away my horrid secret?”
“You didn’t,” Patrick looked a little self-conscious.
“The fact is, I really thought it might be Kitty’s.”
“Why, you ghoul, you!” Faye said. “Ferreting out birthdays! I hope you don’t mind my calling him names, Jean?”
“You took the words out of my mouth, Faye. Pat, come clean! How did you know it was anybody’s birthday?”
“I’ll explain later,” Pat said. “If you’ll excuse us, we’ll trot along to Adriances’ now and get there ahead of the doctor. By the way, before we go, do you happen to know if Casey had much money in his safe, Rob?”
Faye cut in. “If you’ll excuse me, Pat, I must not let one more minute go by without congratulating my brother on his wonderful self-control this morning.” Her voice was teasing. “Are you going to rearrange that brook, Rob?”
“My God Almighty!” Rob said.
“You were an angel,” Faye said. “Most of the time, anyway.”
“Well, you weren’t,” Rob said. “Do you think we’ll ever be able to get her out of that house?”
Faye said, and her manner was suddenly very serious, “I think she figures now that she can stay there forever.”
So Kitty knows about Alex, I thought. And so does Faye. And Faye knows Kitty knows.