Death on the Aisle (31 page)

The major's face delivered itself of an expression of concern; his voice grew lower and more solemn.

“Afraid you're wrong, Pamela,” he said. “We've been worried recently. All of us—even Ben.” His tone removed Ben to the outer fringes. “Been acting very odd, mother has. And that last husband of hers!” The major's tone removed the last husband to the ultimate limbo. “That in itself,” the major added, sadly.

“I only met him once,” Pam said. “He seemed rather—” She stopped for a word.

“Exactly.” The major took over. “Of all the nasty, slippery, unwholesome weaklings I ever saw your Stephen Anthony—sorry, my dear, I mean your aunt's Stephen Anthony—is the prize.” He stared at Pam, waiting for the words to sink in. “And I've seen some,” he added, counter-sinking them.

“I always wondered,” Pam said, “how Aunt Flora who—who'd known so many men, and seen so many things, could bring herself—. I'll admit I always wondered that. But I think she was lonely.”

“Nonsense,” the major told her. “Three sons, hasn't she? Counting Ben, that is. And a lot of grandchildren. And that what's-his-name—Harry—who hangs around all the time. Don't think much of him, come to that. But at least he's somewhere near her age. This young—weasel!”

“Relatives aren't quite the same,” Pam said. “Even children, I should think. I mean, I'm very fond of the cats, but they aren't the same as Jerry. Not really.”

The major looked a little baffled, but put himself again on the track. Years before he had tried to make a rule not to listen to Pamela North when she interrupted and said things nobody could understand. He had, even earlier and with little more success, made a similar rule as regarded his mother. They threw men off, but, after all, they were women.

“Well,” he said, “can you imagine anything queerer than marrying this Anthony worm? That's when we began to wonder—even Ben. I never denied mother was odd—not in the family, anyway. But after that! Well!”

Pam felt some sympathy.

“But after all,” she pointed out, “she's got rid of him, now. And gone back to Buddie.”

The major nodded.

“Odd,” he said, “how she always goes back to Buddie. In between. Makes it difficult for Ben, at the bank. Checks and things.” This last thought seemed to please him mildly. “A bit of a blow to him too, I'd think. Never goes back to Craig, I notice. Must make Ben think.” He paused. “Even Ben,” he added.

“Not,” he added after a moment, “that Fred Craig wasn't quite a man. Ball player, you know. I thought he was great, as a kid. Had a real spitter. Don't see those, nowadays. Held the ball like this.”

The major doubled his hand in a complicated gesture, as if he were throwing a ball. He looked very interested.

“Taught me,” the major said. “Had quite a spitter myself, once. Not like Fred's, of course.” He moved one finger a little to the side. “More like this, it was,” he said. He stared at his hand reflectively. Then he remembered that Pam was looking at him and, when he met her eyes, smiled.

“Never made anything of it, of course,” he said. “Where were we?”

“You thought your mother was getting queer and imagining things,” Pam said. “Because she married Anthony. And that she wasn't poisoned at all, really. But she was, I think.”

The major stared at her.

“Yes,” Pam said. “I think she was. I don't think she imagined it. It didn't feel as if she imagined it. When she was talking, I mean. Were you here that day?”

The major looked at her suspiciously.

“Here?” he repeated. “Yes, as a matter of fact. I was here. Didn't think anything of it; none of us did. She was all right the next day. Or pretty near.”

“And the rest?” Pam said. “The girls? Ben? Harry Upstairs?”

The major nodded after the girls and Ben. Then he repeated, “Upstairs?”

“I always think of him,” Pam explained, “as Harry Upstairs. I know it really isn't that—Harry Something-else. Parsons?”

“Perkins,” the major said. “Yes, he was here. And Chris and young McClelland, I think. Even Anthony came in.”

“Really?” Pam said. “Anthony too?”

The major nodded.

“There's the man, if it was anybody,” he said. “Kind of thing he would do, you know. Funny his showing up, too.”

It was funny, Pam agreed. Because he had not, before then, been around for weeks.

“A month, anyway,” the major said. “She threw him out. And that day he turned up bold as brass and wanted to see her. Did, too. Ben let him in. Ben would.”

“But,” Pam pointed out, “Aunt Flora must have agreed to see him.”

The major nodded slowly. She had agreed to see him, although she had already complained of feeling unwell. He had been in her room for almost an hour until her illness had really begun to worry her.

“Talking,” the major said. “God knows what about. She's not leaving him anything.”

It was a surprising remark. Pam remembered not to look surprised.

“Not a cent,” the major said. “Saw the will myself. Everything to the family. A quarter each to Ben and Wesley and me and young McClelland gets his father's share. And charities, of course—things like that. And bequests. Nice penny for you, Pamela.”

“That will be nice,” Pamela said, sincerely but without thinking. “I mean—well, it will be nice. After all, I'm much younger.”

“Obviously,” Major Buddie said. “Not blaming you, my dear. Don't think you'd feed her arsenic to get it, though. Doubt if anybody would.” He paused. “Even Ben,” he added, thoughtfully but with less conviction. “Don't think anybody tried to kill her,” he said, finally. “Lot of nonsense. Something she imagined.”

“Well,” Pamela said. There was no use arguing it.

“Now,” said the major, having attended to the matter of the arsenic. “That's settled. How about the cats? Siamese, you say?”

“Partly,” Pam told him. “On their mother's side. I could bring them down.”

The major said “nonsense.”

“Can't go lugging cats around,” he explained. “Makes them nervous. We'll go to them. In your room, eh?”

The cats were in Pam's room, curled up together on the bed. Pam was worried, but they accepted the major with interest and appreciation. Ruffy turned on her back to be stroked and, as the major bent to reach her, Toughy, displaying glad surprise, leaped to the major's back. He flattened himself on the major's shoulders, looping behind the soldierly neck, and began comfortably to chew an oak leaf. Cats liked the major, too, and Pam said as much.

“That's what he always does with Jerry,” she said. “Nobody else, though. But he tears clothes.”

The major said “nonsense” again, but on second thought lifted Toughy down. Toughy chewed the oak leaf to the last but failed to detach it. The major was younger, and almost whimsical, playing with cats. He played with them for several minutes, and said they were fine cats.

“Siamese doesn't show much,” he admitted, standing up at length. “However—nice to have cats around a house.” He looked at Pam and shook his head. “The girls prefer dogs,” he said. “Odd, eh?”

“Well,” Pam said, “it needn't be one thing or the other. Dogs are all right, too.”

“Handsome of you,” the major said. He moved toward the door, stopped and faced her.

“No detecting, now, young lady,” he said. “All nonsense anyway. But don't
you
go poking around.” His expression was stern, commanding. “That's for policemen,” he said. “Authority. If there were anything to detect. But, between us, just her vaporings. Not as young as she was. We've got to face it.”

“I see,” Pam said, intentionally vague. “Maybe you're right.” There was still no use arguing it. She and the cats followed the major to the door and she was very careful not to let the cats out when he left, and he was careful to help, slipping sideways through the door in a manner which might have left an unfortunate impression with anyone who saw him. But apparently no one did.

And then, after he had gone on up the stairs, Pam found that she had remaining, of cats, only Ruffy. Toughy had been too much for them. She went to the hall and called softly and from below there came a small, responsive cry. Pam said “Damn” in a tone of resignation and went down after him. She heard him scampering ahead and wondered what dog-lover had started the libel that cats moved softly, in sneaky quiet. Toughy and Ruffy audibly trampled, even on carpets.

Toughy galloped down the hall and, apparently, into the library. Someone—Sand, presumably—had turned out the lights there, save for one small lamp near the door, since she and Major Alden Buddie had gone upstairs. Toughy waited for her near the light and then, as she approached, decided that it would be amusing to be terrified. He dashed off, tail up and twisted, and scrambled under a sofa which jutted at right angles to the wall near the fireplace. Pam went over, got on hands and knees, and reached. She touched fur with her fingers. The fur receded. Toughy made a small, throaty sound of pleasure and interest. But now there was no reaching him from this side.

Pam, moving more quietly than a cat, went around the sofa. If she were quick enough she might get him before he retreated again toward the front. She dropped, got a hand on him and heard Judy Buddie say, from near the door.

“But, Clem, I had to make up
something
. I had no way of knowing—”

“All
right,
darling,” Clementine Buddie said. She had evidently said it before; her voice held amused, affectionate impatience. “Of course you couldn't know. Although why you settled on Mary Conover, when even Dad knows she's pure—drip. Not that the poor dear will think about it, I expect.”

There was a little pause. Pam started to get up before things went further. And then Judy said, in a different tone,

“Why don't you give it up, Clem? Give
him
up? Because, if you are talking about poison—.”

Clem interrupted. Her voice had changed, too. It was light and amused, still, but the amusement was a thin film over something which was not amusement at all.

“Hold it, Judy,” she said. “Hold everything, sister. One girl's poison, another girl's meat. And I hear enough from—from other people. If I want to see him. I want to see him.”

“Wherein,” Judy said, rather dryly, “you and he appear to differ. If he did stand you up, as I gather.”

“All right,” Clem said. Her voice wasn't amused, any longer. “Skip it, darling. Something came up. He—he called me.”

“Did he?” Judy's voice was without particular expression.

“Of course,” Clem said. She was angry, now. “Don't get ideas, Judy. He's—he feels the same way. And nobody had better spoil it.”

“All I've done,” Judy said, “is to try to help. And been made to look like a fool for my trouble.”

There was a little flurry. Clem was evidently displaying affection. Her voice—she can do a lot with her voice for a girl of eighteen, Pam thought—showed affection.

“Of course, darling,” Clem said in a rush. “Of course you have. Don't think it isn't wonderful of you. It's—other people.” She paused. “The snake, chiefly,” she said. Clem repeated it, describing the snake. She gets around, Pam thought. There was a little gasp from Judy.

“Clem!” she said. “Not—him. Not the snake.”

There was a moment's pause.

“I'm afraid he does,” Clem said. “The—the—”

Words failed her, this time.

“I'd like to—scotch him,” she said, and now she sounded as if she were almost crying. “I'd like to—I'd hate to tell you what I'd like to do, Judy. Because you know what he's after.”

“What he's always been after,” Judy said. “From the first. But I don't see what he could do. Or, I mean, how—who would he go to?” Her voice suddenly grew more anxious. “Listen, Clem,” she said. “He doesn't
know
anything, really? I mean—there isn't anything he
could
know?” And then there was another pause, and the answer—whatever it was—came without words.

“Oh—Clem!” Judy said. “Darling—how?”

“Could I?” Clem finished. Her voice was level, and there was a kind of hopelessness in it. “Oh, darling—such a sweet darling. You can't really imagine, can you? Not
really
. My little sister!”

But that wasn't right, of course. It was really Clem who was the “little” sister; by two years the little sister. There's only one thing makes a woman feel as Clem feels toward another woman, Pam thought. Older and—pitying. However unhappy, still pitying of those who have not their unhappiness. Poor Clem. And now there was no coming out.

“An eaves-drip!” Pam told herself, bitterly. “Why do I? I'm
really
getting to—to snoop around.”

And it hasn't anything to do with the arsenic, Pam thought, as she heard the two girls—who seemingly had merely stepped inside the library for the moment of their talk, and were now going on again toward their rooms at the top of the house—as she heard them, after a moment, move out into the hall and begin to climb the stairs. Obviously, it has nothing to do with the arsenic. It meant that Clem was in trouble of some sort, and of a not obscure sort, and that Judy was her confidante. It meant that somebody called “the snake” was an ingredient in the trouble, but not the main ingredient, and that Clem would like to scotch the snake. But it was absurd to think that Aunt Flora was the snake, particularly since the snake was “he.” And it was Aunt Flora, if anybody, who had been scotched. “Scotch the snake, not kill him.” Which was what had happened to Aunt Flora.

Pam gathered Toughy up and he tried to crawl to her shoulders, now, and was suppressed after a short tussle.

“When I'm wearing a suit, darling,” Pam said. “Not when I'm practically bare.”