Death Before Bedtime (8 page)

In the living room I found Ellen and Mrs. Rhodes, pale but calm; they were talking to a mountainous, craggy man who was, it turned out, Johnson Ledbetter, the Governor of Senator Rhodes’ home state.

“I flew here as quick as possible, Miss Grace,” he said with Midwestern warmth, taking Mrs. Rhodes’ hands in his, a look of dog-like devotion in his eyes.

“Lee would have appreciated it,” said Mrs. Rhodes, equal to the occasion. “You’ll say a few words at the funeral tomorrow?”

“Indeed I will, Miss Grace. This has shocked me more than I can say. The flag on the State Capitol back home is at half-mast,” he added.

As the others wandered into the room, Ellen got me aside; she was excited and her face glowed. “They’re going to read the will tomorrow, after the funeral.”

“Looks like you’re going to be a rich girl,” I said, drying my sleeve with a handkerchief … in her excitement she had slopped some of her Scotch Mist on me. “I wonder if the police have taken a look at it yet.”

She looked puzzled. “Why should they?”

“Well, darling, there’s a theory going around that people occasionally get removed from this vale of tears by overanxious heirs.”

“Don’t be silly. Anyway tomorrow is the big day. That’s why the Governor’s here.”

“To read the will?”

“Yes, he’s the family lawyer. Father made him Governor a couple of years ago. I forget just why … you know how politicians are.”

“I’m beginning to find out. By the way, have you gotten into that Langdon boy yet?”

“What an ugly question!” she beamed; then she shook her head. “I haven’t had time. Last night would have been unseemly … I mean after the murder. This afternoon I was interrupted.”

“I think he’s much too innocent for the likes of you.”

“Stop it … you don’t know about these things. He’s rather tense, I’ll admit, but they’re much the best fun … the tense ones.”

“What a bore I must’ve been.”

“As a matter of fact, you were; now that you mention it.” She chuckled; then she paused, looking at someone who had just come in. I looked over my shoulder and saw the Pomeroys in the doorway. He looked pale and weary; she, on the other hand, was quite lovely, her attack of grippe under control. The Governor greeted them cordially. Ellen left me for Walter Langdon. I joined the Governor’s group by the fireplace. For a while I just listened.

“Camilla, you grow younger every year!” intoned the Governor.

Mrs. Pomeroy gestured coquettishly. “You just want my vote, Johnson.”

“How long are you going to be with us, Governor?” asked Pomeroy. If he was alarmed by the mess he was in, he didn’t show it; except for his pallor, he seemed much as ever.

Mrs. Rhodes excused herself and went in to the dining room. The Governor remarked that he would stay in town through the funeral and the reading of the will; that he was flying back to Talisman City immediately afterwards: “Got that damned legislature on my hands,” he boomed. “Don’t know what they’ll do next.” He looked about him to make sure that no members of the deceased’s family were near by; then he asked: “How did your session with the Defense Department go?”

Pomeroy shrugged. “I was at the Pentagon most of the day … I’m afraid the only thing they wanted to talk about was the … accident.”

“A tragical happening, tragical,” declared the Governor, shaking his head like some vast moth-eaten buffalo.

Pomeroy sighed: “It doesn’t do my product much good,” he said. “Not of course that I’m not very sad about this, for Mrs. Rhodes’ sake, but after all, I’ve got a factory back home which has got to get some business or else.”

“How well I know, Roger,” said the Governor with a bit more emphasis than the situation seemed to call for. I wondered if there was any business connection between the two. “We don’t want to swell the ranks of the unemployed, do we?”

“Especially not if I happen to be one of the unemployed,” said Roger Pomeroy dryly.

“I always felt,” said his wife who had been standing close to the Governor, listening, “that Lee’s attitude was terribly unreasonable. He should’ve done
everything
in his power to help us.”

“What do you mean?” asked the Governor.

Pomeroy spoke first, quickly, before his wife could elaborate. “Lee didn’t push the 5-X as vigorously as I thought he should, that’s all … that was one of the reasons I came to Washington on this trip … poor Lee.”

“Poor Lee,” repeated Mrs. Pomeroy, with real sincerity.

“A great statesman has fallen,” said the Governor, obviously rehearsing his funeral oration. “Like some great oak he leaves an empty place against the sky in our hearts.”

Overwhelmed by the majesty of this image, I missed Pomeroy’s eulogy; the next remark I heard woke me up, though. “Have you seen the will yet?” asked Mrs. Pomeroy, blowing her nose emotionally.

The Governor nodded gravely. “Indeed I have, Camilla. I drew it up for Lee.”

“I wonder …” she began, but then she was interrupted by the appearance of Lieutenant Winters who joined us at the fireplace, bowed to the Governor and then, politely but
firmly, led Mr. Pomeroy into the dining room. Interviews, I gathered, had been going on for some time. The Governor detached himself from Camilla Pomeroy and joined Miss Pruitt on the couch and, considering the “tragical” nature of the occasion, both were quite boisterous, talking politics eagerly.

My own interview with the Lieutenant took place right after he had finished with Pomeroy. I sat down beside him in the dining room; the table was brilliantly set for dinner, massive Georgian silver gleaming in the dim light. Through the pantry door I could hear the servants bustling about. The usual plain-clothes man was on hand, taking notes. He sat behind Winters.

It took me several minutes to work my way past the Lieutenant’s official manner; when I finally did, I found him troubled. “It won’t come out right,” he said plaintively. “There just isn’t any evidence of any kind.”

“Outside of the explosive.”

“Which doesn’t mean a thing since anybody in this house, except possibly you, could have got to it.”

“Then you don’t think Pomeroy was responsible?”

Winters played with a fork thoughtfully. “Yes, I think he probably was but there’s no evidence. He had no motive … or rather he had no more motive than several others.”

“Like who?”

A direct question was a mistake I could see; he shook his head, “Can’t tell you.”

“I’m beginning to find out anyway,” I said. I made a guess: “Rufus Hollister,” and I paused significantly.

“What do you know about him?” Winters was inscrutable; yet I had a feeling that I was on the right track.

“It seems awfully suspicious his wanting to get into the
Senator’s office. I have a feeling there’s something in there he doesn’t want you to find.”

Winters stared at me a moment, a little absent-mindedly. “Obviously,” he said at last. “I wish I knew, though, what it was.” This was frank. “We’re still reading documents and letters. It’ll take us a week to get through everything.”

“I have a hunch you’ll find your evidence among those papers.”

“I hope so.”

“None of the press has been let in on this yet, have they?”

Winters shook his head. “Nothing beyond the original facts. But there’s a lot of pressure being brought to bear on us, from all over.” I was suddenly sorry for him: there were a good many disadvantages to being mixed up in a political murder in a city like Washington. “That Pruitt woman, for instance … she was in touch with the White House today, trying to get out of being investigated.”

“Did it work?”

“Hell no! There are times when the law is sacred. This is one of them.”

“What about the will?” I changed
that
subject.

“I haven’t seen a copy of it yet. The Governor won’t let us look at it until tomorrow … says he ‘can’t break faith with the dead.’ ”

“You may find out something from that, from the will.”

“I doubt it.” The Lieutenant was gloomy. “Well, that’s all for now,” he said at last. “The minute you turn up anything let me know … try and find out as much as you can about the family from Miss Rhodes: it’d be a great help to us and might speed things up.”

“I will,” I said. “I’ve already got a couple of ideas about Hollister … but I’ll tell you about them later.”

“Good.” We both stood up. “Be careful, by the way.”

“Careful?”

He nodded grimly. “If the murderer should discover that you were on his tail we might have a double killing to investigate.”

“Thanks for the advice.”

“Think nothing of it.” On a rather airy note, I went back to the company in the drawing room. My mind was crowded with theories and suspicions … at that moment they all looked like potential murderers to me. Suddenly, just before I joined Ellen and Walter Langdon, I thought of that quotation I had found in his room, the one he had snatched away from me. I also remembered where it came from: my unconscious had been worrying it for several hours and now, out of the dim past, out of my prep school days, came the answer: William Shakespeare … the play:
Julius Caesar
 … the speaker: Brutus … the serpent in the egg: Caesar. There was no doubt about it. Brutus murdered the tyrant Caesar. It was like a problem in algebra: Senator Rhodes equals Julius Caesar; X equals Brutus. X is the murderer. Was Walter Langdon X?

I went to bed early that night. At dinner I drank too much wine and, as always, I felt bloated and sleepy. Everyone was in rather a grim mood so I excused myself at ten o’clock and went off to bed. I would have no visitors, I decided: Ellen was at work again on young Langdon and I was quite sure that they would be together, finishing what I had interrupted that afternoon.

I awakened with a start. For a moment I thought there was someone in the room and by the dim light of a street lamp I was positive that a figure was standing near the window. My heart racing, a chill sweat starting out on my spine, I made a quick lunge for the lamp beside my bed; it fell to the floor. Positive that I was alone in the room with a murderer, I jumped out of bed and ran to the door and flicked on the overhead light.

The room was empty and the figure by the window turned out to be my clothes arranged over an armchair.

Feeling rather shaky, even a little bit unwell, I went into the bathroom and took some aspirin. I wondered if I had caught Camilla Pomeroy’s grippe; I decided that the wine had made me sick and I thought longingly of soda water, my usual remedy for a hangover. It was too late to ring for the butler. According to my watch it was a little after one o’clock, getting near the hour of the Senator’s death, I thought as I put on my dressing gown, ready now to go downstairs in search of soda.

I remember thinking how dark the stairway seemed. There
was one dim light burning on the third-floor landing and, from the bottom of the stair well, there was a faint light. The second landing was completely dark, however. Barely able to see, I moved slowly down the stairs, my hand on the banister. I was creeping slowly across the second landing, fumbling in my pockets for matches which were not there, when I suddenly found myself flying through space.

I landed with a crash on the carpeted stairs, stumbled forward, unable to stop my momentum; and, finally, bumped all the way downstairs like a comedian doing pratfalls, landing at the feet of Lieutenant Winters.

“What in Christ’s name happened?” he asked, picking me up and helping me into the drawing room where the lights were still on.

It took me several minutes to get myself straightened out. I had twisted my left leg badly and one shoulder felt as though it had been dislocated. He brought me a shot of brandy which I gulped; it made a difference … I was able to bring him and the room into focus, my aches and pains a little less overpowering.

“They should install elevators,” I said weakly.

“What happened?”

“Someone shoved me.”

“Did you see who it was?”

“No … too dark. The lights were out on the second landing.”

“What were you doing up?”

“I wanted to get some soda … upset stomach.” I stretched my arms carefully; my shoulder throbbed. Nothing was broken, though.

“I wonder.…” Then the Lieutenant was gone in a flash, running up the stairs two at a time. I followed him as fast
as possible. When I reached the second landing, I was almost bowled over again by a gust of ice-cold air from the end of the hall. Then the lights came on and I saw Winters standing in front of the wrecked study; he was bending over the unconscious figure of a plain-clothes man. The blanket which had been hung over the study door was gone. I shivered in the cold.

“Is he dead?” I asked.

Winters shook his head. “Help me get him downstairs.” Together we carried the man down to the drawing room and stretched him out on a couch. Then Winters went to the front door and called one of the guards in and told him to look after his fallen comrade, to bring him to. “Somebody hit him,” said the Lieutenant, pointing to a dark red lump over one temple. The man stirred and groaned. The other plain-clothes men went for water while Winters and I went back upstairs again.

It was the first time I had been in the study since my interview with the Senator. The lights were still out of order in this room. Winters pulled out a small pocket flashlight and trained the white beam of light on the room. There was a gaping hole in the wall where the fireplace had been. All the ruined furniture had been pushed to the far end of the room, away from the hole. The various filing cabinets were open, and empty.

“You mean to say somebody got in here and took all the papers just now?” I was amazed.

Winters grunted, flashing his light over the shelves of books, over the photographs which hung crazily on the walls. “
We
took them,” he said. “They’re all down at headquarters. I wonder if our prowler knew that.”

“A wasted trip then,” I said, stepping back into the warm
corridor, out of the cold room. Winters joined me a moment later. “Nothing’s been touched as far as I can tell,” he said. “We’ll have the fingerprint squad go over the place tomorrow … not that I expect they’ll find anything,” he sounded discouraged.