Amy pushed aside her unfinished breakfast and began to dress. Natalie would never understand a woman like Esther. Natalie knew nothing of the height of passion or the depth of despair. She enjoyed playing the game according to the rules, but Esther was potentially lawless...
Curtis waited at the foot of the stairs. The face he lifted to Amy was drawn and sallow in the morning light. “Let’s go outdoors,” he suggested. “Where we can talk undisturbed.”
Amy led the way around the front of the house to a carefully cultivated patch of lawn, an oasis amidst the wind-blown poverty-grass of the dunes. There were iron chairs that Natalie had had painted dusty pink instead of the usual white. Curtis leaned forward in his chair, hands tense, eyes haunted, the eyes of a stranger.
“Amy, I want you to think carefully before you answer the question I’m going to ask you. Could you go on the witness stand and swear that the woman’s voice you overheard on the telephone was Esther’s?”
Amy shook her head. “I couldn’t swear. But I believe it. Don’t you?”
Curtis sat back in his chair, his face relaxed in the smile that was so familiar. “Of course not.” The glance he bent on Amy now was the old, quizzically affectionate glance she knew so well. “I’m not quite a fool, Amy,” he said comfortably. “And I’m a good many years older than you. If Esther cared about another man, I should know it. Do you believe me?”
There was unmistakable sincerity in his voice. Amy looked into the friendly eyes and felt a great compassion for him. If Esther was abusing such unquestioning faith, she was doing something more coldly evil than murder itself.
“You understand that I wasn’t just — gossiping?” said Amy. “I would not have said anything if there had been no talk of murder.”
“I understand that.” Curtis’s voice was quickly sympathetic. “You thought you were protecting me and you couldn’t warn me without accusing Esther. I just wish you hadn’t done it so publicly. There’s going to be talk now. Unpleasant talk. But we can fight that, if you’ll help. Will you?”
“What do you want me to do?”
“First of all, Esther wants to talk to you. Will you go to see her today?”
“What good will that do?”
“Amy—” There was surprise in his voice. “Don’t you like my wife?”
“I must answer honestly: We’re not congenial.”
“That’s too bad.” Curtis frowned. “Because she likes you so much. She feels that if she could just have a talk with you she could clear up any misunderstanding. Will you try, Amy?”
Amy was surprised at the almost physical revulsion she felt. “All right, I’ll try. To please you. Anything else?”
“Yes. Your mother thinks we should all appear in public together as soon as possible, behave just as if nothing had happened. It’s a matter of saving face.”
“That sounds like Mother,” murmured Amy.
“Your mother knows her world,” returned Curtis. “She has the nerve and the presence and influence to carry off a thing like this. The rest of us will have to play up to her.”
“Mother has no influence with the police.”
“She has social influence, which is more important now,” explained Curtis. “The police may be satisfied, but what about public opinion? If your mother appears in public with you and Esther, everyone will know that she never believed your charges against Esther and that you have withdrawn them.”
“Then it’s really Esther whose face we are to save?”
For a moment Curtis was silent. Then he spoke earnestly: “You don’t seem to realize, Amy, how much I love my wife. If your fantastic idea were true, if she actually did love another man, I would do everything to make divorce easy for her, once I was convinced she really wanted it. That’s why this idea of her planning my death is so ridiculous. She has no conceivable motive for wishing me out of the way.” His voice shook.
Amy wondered at his emotion. Under this brave front was he, too, beginning to doubt Esther? Moved, she said quickly, “When is this to be?”
“Tomorrow. We’ll dine at the club and stay for the dance afterward. We can meet at my place for cocktails — you and your mother, Kate and Peter and Allan, Esther and Payne and myself.”
“The same party we had last night.” Amy spoke with a sense of foreboding.
“It has to be,” insisted Curtis. “And you will go to see Esther today? Around teatime?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you, Amy.”
She watched his tall figure move toward the car he had left in the drive. He turned to smile at her. “Don’t worry, Amy!”
She went into the house. In the living-room, Natalie was pretending to read the morning Times. Amy knew it was pretense, for the paper was open at the financial page, and Natalie never read anything but book reviews and fashions. Peter wasn’t pretending anything. He openly waited for Amy.
“Well?” he said as Amy came in.
She spoke a little tartly: “Curtis doesn’t believe Esther is capable of violence. If she’s been indiscreet, he would much rather not know anything about it, so I made him happy by admitting I couldn’t swear the woman whose voice I heard was Esther. I’m to see her this afternoon and we’re all dining together publicly tomorrow.”
“Well, I’m glad it’s all settled!” Natalie spoke as if a minor domestic problem had been happily resolved. Her heels tapped briskly, almost gaily, as she trotted upstairs.
Amy crossed the room to Peter. “Tell me something, Pete.” It was a long time since she had used his schoolboy nickname. “You weren’t ever really serious about Esther?”
“What ever gave you that idea?”
“Something Kate said last night.”
“Oh, Kate!” He laughed uneasily. “She’s become quite possessive lately.”
“Did Esther ever encourage you?”
“Well—” Peter had the grace to color. “But it wasn’t serious.”
“Then perhaps you were only a smoke screen,” suggested Amy with sisterly realism.
“Smoke screen for what?” There was a touch of pique in Peter’s demand.
“For some other man, of course, who was serious about Esther. Kate’s jealousy would make you an effective screen.”
Peter looked at his sister with malice. “The only other man Esther sees much of is your pal, Allan Galt.”
“What about Matthew Payne?”
“Could be,” admitted Peter. “But I can’t think of anyone else. Why are you so dead set against Esther?”
“Look what she’s done to Curtis. He used to have character, but now — I wouldn’t like her to do the same thing to you, Pete.”
“She won’t. Don’t worry.”
“That’s what Curtis said,” Amy sighed. “But somebody’s got to worry.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m morally certain that it was Esther’s voice I heard on the telephone. And I have no idea what her next move will be.”...
By teatime long feelers of sea mist were creeping into every highway and byway like an invading army of ghosts. Even the Gregory house and stable, two solid blocks of ivy-covered brick, seemed to float and shiver like something seen under water. But Esther herself, standing before a glazing driftwood fire in the long, oak-paneled living-room, had laid aside her air of mystery as if it were a cast-off garment. In a dark crimson sweater and a skirt of black-and-white tweed, she was the proper young matron — wholesome, competent, discreet, with just a dash of sophisticated charm used as sparingly as bitters in a cocktail or garlic in a salad. Amy felt shabby in her old trench coat, glad she had worn her good tweeds underneath.