“Why don’t chuz get on where you’re supposed to?” he bellowed. “Whaddya think this is, a crosstown trolley stopping at every corner?” And things like that that drivers say when they’re afraid of being thought soft-hearted.
She went reeling down the aisle, found a vacant double near the back. A moment later Quinn had dropped down beside her, their borrowed car jockeyed over to the curb and left behind, their tickets jealously clutched in his hand. Tickets for all the way, tickets for home.
The bus got started again.
They were well out in the Jersey meadows, the tunnel behind them, New York behind them, before she’d gotten enough breath back to talk at all.
“Quinn,” she said in an undertone, so she wouldn’t be overheard by those around them, “I wonder if we’ll be able to make it stick? What we did back there just now. Do you think those two will be able to talk their way out of it? After all, we won’t be there to give our side of it.”
“We won’t have to. There’ll be others who can put the finger on them so effectively they’ll never be able to wriggle out of it.”
“Others? You mean there are witnesses?”
“Not witnesses to the murder. No one saw that. But there’s one member of his own family, in particular, whose testimony will be enough to convict them.”
“How do you know?”
“There’s a letter from the younger brother, Roger, back there in Graves’ desk, where I told them to look for it. The one I told you was away at college somewhere. It was sent special delivery, he must have gotten it sometime yesterday. I came across it while I was waiting for you to show up. In it the kid tried to tip off the elder Graves, so he wouldn’t come across if the Bristol woman tried to put her hooks into him.”
“How’d he know?”
“He was married to her.”
She held her lips parted for a moment. “Then that explains what had us so stumped in that note from her to Graves. ‘You don’t know me, but I feel like a member of the family.’ ”
“That’s it. One of these undergraduate gin-marriages. Only it wasn’t even a real one at that; it was spiked, phony. She still has a husband at large somewhere, so in order to steer clear of a bigamy rap, she went through a mock ceremony with him. It’s the dirtiest thing I’ve heard of in years.”
“How’d he come to get tangled up with such a bum?”
“She was entertaining at a roadhouse near his college, and he used to go there Saturday nights with his pals, that’s how he first met her. He’s just a kid, what do you expect? The kid fell for her, the kid got high, and the kid proposed marriage. She and this former vaudeville partner of hers looked him up, and they found out he came from a prominent family and meant dough. That made it different. So they rigged this thing up and they took him.”
“But that’s pure corn, that goes back to about 1900.”
“They got away with it. Sometimes the oldest things work the best. Just listen to this. The partner used to do a vaudeville act in which he impersonated a rube justice of the peace. So all he did was do the act over again, for the kid’s benefit, and the kid believed he was really married to her. He planted himself somewhere nearby, she and the kid drove out with their witnesses one Saturday night, and a counterfeit ceremony was performed. I suppose the gin helped a lot.”
“And you mean he didn’t tumble—?”
“Not for two months after, according to his own letter. It was kept secret by mutual consent. The kid went ahead with his courses and she went ahead with her entertaining. The partner came back to town here and laid low, naturally. Those were a couple of very profitable months for the two of them.”
“What lice there are in this world.”
“They were on a part-time man-and-wife basis, the kid and her, and week-ends, which was the only time he could see her, was when the touch used to go on him. They bled the kid white, took him for all they could.”
“And then, I suppose, the pitcher went to the well once too often.”
“That’s about it. All the dough was coming from Stephen Graves in the first place, not the kid, naturally. So when the take started to climb up a little too high, he cut off the kid’s funds.”
“That blew the lid off.”
“They didn’t trust each other, she and the partner. When the easy money stopped short, he must’ve thought she was trying to double-cross him, hold out on him or something. Anyway, he did the last thing he should have done; rushes back up there and shows himself around, trying to find out what’s what. The rest you can piece out for yourself.”
“Just about.”
“The kid caught sight of him hanging around her dressing-room, recognized him, and at long last tumbled to the frame that they’d worked on him. I guess he would have killed the two of them if he could have got his hands on them, but they lit out just one jump ahead of him.”
“I bet they did.”
“Only they weren’t satisfied even yet. Success must have gone to their heads or something. They figured the stunt might be good for one more lump payment at this end, before Roger could get to his older brother and warn him what was what. After all, there was a debutante-age sister to be considered, and all that stuff doesn’t do anyone any good, even when they’re innocent parties. And that’s where the shooting came in. The special delivery from the kid beat them to Stephen by just a couple of hours’ time; he was ready for them by the time they showed up.”
“I can fill in the rest of it myself; I overheard that part of it from them. Instead of bluffing easy and getting frightened, he turned the tables on them. The woman went in first to cinch the deal, leaving the man waiting for her outside the house. Graves told her to go to hell, and told her he was going to bring police action against her. She lost her head, ran down to the door, and let her accomplice in. He pulled a gun on Graves. Graves grabbed for it, and Graves lost his life.”
“And I nearly lost mine. And you nearly lost yours.”
“You mean when you jumped them back there?”
“No. Holmes. Before then.”
“Why? What happened?”
“Holmes. He wasn’t the right one. But he was so scared stiff about that check, that when he found out Graves was dead and he might be accused of having done it, he lost his head and nearly turned himself into the very thing that he was trying so hard not to be suspected of. Murder, with me the object.”
“He tried to—?”
“He did more than try. He practically had the thing finished. He put something into my whiskey, and he was going to roll me over into the river. I think he already had me out of the car; I don’t know, I was only half-conscious by then. Your name saved me. I happened to mumble that you’d know he did it anyway, that it wouldn’t save him to get rid of me. That threw him into reverse. It doubled his fright, but at least it snapped him out of it. Instead of shoving me in, he spent the next quarter of an hour dashing cold water into my face and walking me around and around the car, so the sedative would wear off. Then he rushed me back to his place and filled me full of pitch-black coffee.
“By the time that was over — I dunno — we sort of believed each other. Don’t ask me why. I guess we were both too worn out to be suspicious any more. I believed he hadn’t done it, and he believed I wasn’t just trying to shake him down on the strength of the check.
“He told me he hadn’t meant to do it. For that matter, I guess they never do. He’d simply been caught short, and to cover himself up he’d palmed the check off on Graves. But then he’d already raised the money to make it good even by the time he went over to see Graves last night. Then he found he couldn’t square it because Graves couldn’t find the blamed thing any more when he went to look for it. It had fluttered out of the cash-box when I broke into the safe the first time, you remember.