“How much did Nora get?” asked Ellery. He glanced at Jim. But Jim was stertorously asleep.
“I don’t know. But Pop once told me it’s more than Nora and I could ever spend. Oh, Lord¯Nora!”
“If you start to cry,” said Ellery grimly, “I’ll dump you overboard. Is this inheritance to you and Nora a secret?”
“Try to keep a secret in Wrightsville,” said Pat. ”Nora’s money . . . ” She began to laugh. ”It’s like a bad movie. Ellery, what are we going to do?” She laughed and laughed.
I i Ellery turned Pat’s car into the Hill drive. ”Put Jim to bed,” he muttered.
Chapter 11
Thanksgiving: The First Warning
The next morning Mr. Queen was knocking at Nora’s door before eight.
Nora’s eyes were swollen. ”Thanks for¯yesterday. Putting Jim to bed while I was being so silly¯”
“Rubbish,” said Ellery cheerfully. ”There hasn’t been a bride since Eve who didn’t think the world was going under when hubby staggered home under his first load. Where’s the erring husband?”
“Upstairs shaving.” Nora’s hand trembled as she fussed with the gleaming toaster on the breakfast table.
“May I go up? I shouldn’t want to embarrass your sister-in-law by prowling around the bedroom floor at this hour¯”
“Oh, Rosemary doesn’t get up till ten,” said Nora. ”These wonderful November mornings! Please do¯and tell Jim what you think of him!”
Ellery laughed and went upstairs. He knocked on the master-bedroom door, which was half open; and Jim called from the bathroom: “Nora? Gosh, darling, I knew you’d be my sweet baby and forgive¯” His voice blurred when he spied Ellery. Jim’s face was half shaved; the shaved half was pasty and his eyes puffed. ”Morning, Smith. Come in.”
“I just dropped by for a minute to ask you how you were feeling, Jim.” Ellery draped himself against the bathroom jamb.
Jim turned, surprised. ”How did you know?”
“How did / know! Don’t tell me you don’t remember. Why, Pat and I brought you home.”
“Gosh,” groaned Jim. ”I wondered about that. Nora won’t talk to me. Can’t say I blame her. Say, I’m awfully grateful, Smith. Where’d you find me?”
“Carlatti’s place on Route 16. The Hot Spot”
“That dive?” Jim shook his head. ”No wonder Nora’s sore.” He grinned sheepishly. ”Was I sick during the night! Nora fixed me up, but she wouldn’t say a word to me. What a dumb stunt!”
“You did some pretty dumb talking on the ride home, too, Jim.”
“Talking? What did I say?”
“Oh . . . something about ‘getting rid of’ some bastard or other,” said Ellery lightly.
Jim blinked. He turned back to the mirror again. ”Out of my head, I guess. Or else I was thinking of Hitler.”
Ellery nodded, his eyes fixed on the razor. It was shaking.
“I don’t remember a damn thing,” said Jim. ”Not a damn thing.”
“I’d lay off the booze if I were you, Jim,” said Ellery amiably. ”Not that it’s any of my business, but . . . well, if you keep saying things like that, people might misunderstand.”
“Yeah,” said Jim, fingering his shaved cheek. ”I guess they would at that. Ow, my head! Never again.”
“Tell that to Nora,” laughed Ellery. ”Well, morning, Jim.”
“Morning. And thanks again.”
Ellery left, smiling. But the smile vanished on the landing. It seemed to him that the door to the guest room was open a hands-breadth wider than when he had gone in to talk to Jim.
* * *
Mr. Queen found it harder and harder to work on his novel. For one thing, there was the weather. The countryside was splashy with reds and oranges and yellowing greens; the days were frost-touched now as well as the nights, hinting at early snows; nights came on swiftly, with a crackle. It was a temptation to roam back-country roads and crunch the crisp dry corpses of the leaves underfoot. Especially after sunset, when the sky dropped its curtains, lights sparkled in isolated farmhouses, and an occasional whinny or howl came from some black barn.
Wiley Gallimard came into town with five truckloads of turkeys and got rid of them in no time.
“Yes, sir,” said Mr. Queen to himself. ”Thanksgiving’s in the air-everywhere except at 460 Hill Drive.”
Then there was Pat, whose recent habit of peering over her own shoulder had become chronic. She clung to Ellery so openly that Hermione Wright began to make secret plans in her head and even John F., who never noticed anything but flaws in mortgages and rare postage stamps, looked thoughtful . . . It made work very difficult.
But most of all it was watching Jim and Nora without seeming to that occupied Ellery’s time. Things were growing worse in the Haight household.
For Jim and Nora no longer “got along.” There were quarrels so bitter that their impassioned voices flew through the November air all the way across the driveway to the Wright house through closed windows. Sometimes it was about Rosemary; sometimes it was about Jim’s drinking; sometimes it was about money. Jim and Nora continued to put up a brave show before Nora’s family, but everyone knew what was going on.
“Jim’s got a new one,” reported Pat to Ellery one evening. ”He’s gambling!”
“Is he?” said Mr. Queen.
“Nora was talking to him about it this morning.” Pat was so distressed she could not sit still. ”And he admitted it¯shouted it at her. And in the next breath asked her for money. Nora pleaded with him to tell her what was wrong; but the more Nora pleads, the angrier and harder Jim gets. Ellery, I think he’s touched. I really do!”
“That’s not the answer,” said Ellery stubbornly. ”There’s a pattern here. His conduct doesn’t fit, Patty. If only he’d talk. But he won’t. Ed Hotchkiss brought him home in the cab last night. I was waiting on the porch¯Nora’d gone to bed. Jim was pretty well illuminated. But when I began to pump him¯” Ellery shrugged. ”He swung at me . . . Pat.”
Pat jerked. ”What?”
“He’s pawning jewelry.”
“Pawning jewelry! Whose?”
“I followed him at lunch today, when he left the bank. He ducked into Simpson’s, on the Square, and pawned what looked to me like a cameo brooch set with rubies.”
“That’s Nora’s! Aunt Tabitha gave it to her as a high-school graduation present!”
Ellery took her hands. ”Jim has no money of his own, has he?”
“None except what he earns.” Pat’s lips tightened. ”My father spoke to him the other day. About his work. Jim’s neglecting it. You know Pop. Gentle as a lamb. It must have embarrassed him dreadfully. But Jim snapped at him, and poor Pop just blinked and walked away. And have you noticed how my mother’s been looking?”
“Dazed.”
“Muth won’t admit anything’s wrong¯even to me. Nobody will, nobody. And Nora’s worse than any of them! And the town¯Emmy DuPre’s busier than Goebbels! They’re all whispering . . . I hate them! I hate the town, I hate Jim . . . ”
Ellery had to put his arms around her.
* * *
Nora planned Thanksgiving with a sort of desperation¯a woman trying to hold on to her world as it growled and heaved about her.
There were two of Wiley Gallimard’s fanciest toms, and chestnuts to be grated in absurd quantities, and cranberries from Bald Mountain to be mashed, and turnips and pumpkins and goodies galore . . . all requiring preparation, fuss, work, with and without Alberta Manaskas’s help . . . all requiring concentration. And while her house filled with savory odors, Nora would brook no assistance from anyone but Alberta¯not Pat, not Hermione, not even old Ludie, who went about muttering for days about “these snippy young know-it-all brides.”