She did a double-take, then the tension seemed to go out of her. “You’re right, of course,” she said. “I knew Mr. Groener in college, before he ever met her, and after that I saw a bit of them both from time to time, through Mrs. Labelle and others.”
Her voice deepened. “I watched him misuse his best years on too many high-pressure jobs, trying to be too successful too soon—because of her. I watched him become an alcoholic because of her. Finally I saw him drag himself out of that morass, but remain tied to her more closely than ever. She was his weakness, or rather, she brought out the weakness in him.”
Miss Graves shook her head thoughtfully. “Actually I no longer hated her when she killed herself—because during the last years she wasn’t at all sane. It wasn’t just the liquor, understand. Mrs. Groener scribbled paranoid comments in the few books she read. I found some in one I loaned her. She wrote wild complaining letters to people which sometimes cost Mr. Groener jobs.
“As for her social behavior—well, they were staying here because they’d been put out of their last apartment on account of her screaming and loud abusive talk. And she did all sorts of queer little things. For instance, when I came in yesterday she was drinking in the sunroom and she had her left wrist tied to the arm of her chair with a scarf. I asked her why, and she giggled something about supposing I thought she was fit to be tied. I imagine you’ve seen that horrible little wind-and-glass machine she used to blank out the sounds of reality?”
The Lieutenant nodded.
“It wasn’t the first time she tried to commit suicide, either,” Miss Graves went on thoughtfully.
“No? Mr. Groener didn’t tell us anything about that.”
“He wouldn’t! He was always trying to cover up for her, and he still is! It’s a wonder he didn’t try to hide from you that she was an alcoholic.”
“About this earlier suicide attempt,” the Lieutenant prompted.
“I don’t know much about it except that it happened and she used sleeping pills.”
“I take it you don’t live here regularly, Miss Graves.”
“Oh no! Mrs. Labelle invited me yesterday with the idea of old friends rallying around the Groeners. It wasn’t a good idea. Mrs. Groener was hostile toward me, as always, and he was simply miserable.”
“About Mrs. Groener,” the Lieutenant said. “Besides her hostility did she seem depressed?”
Miss Graves shook her head. “No—just a little crazier than last time. And thinner than ever, a bunch of match-sticks. Her drinking had got to that stage. We had some drinks after dinner—not Mr. Groener, of course—and she got very drunk and loud. We could hear her ranting at him for a half hour after we all went to bed—about how he shouldn’t have let them be put out of their apartment and about how he always had to be surrounded by his old girl friends and—”
“Meaning you and Mrs. Labelle?” the Lieutenant cut in.
Miss Graves made a little grimace as she nodded. “Oh yes. Mrs. Groener firmly believed that any other halfway good-looking women in the same room with her husband was his mistress or had been at some time in the past. A fixed delusion though she’d only come out with it at a certain stage of her drinking. I knew that, but it still upset me. I had trouble getting to sleep.”
“You stayed awake?”
“No, I dozed. Her scream awakened me. I started to get up, but then I remembered it was just part of the act. I lay there and after awhile I heard Mr. Groener coming back from the kitchen.”
“Had you heard him go?”
“No, that must have been while I dozed.”
“Did you hear the door to the dining room open or close? It’s just outside your bedroom.”
“I don’t believe so. No, I didn’t. It must have been standing open.”
“Do you sleep with your bedroom door open or closed?”
“Ope—” Miss Graves frowned. “That’s strange. I thought I left it open, but it was closed when the scream woke me up.”
The Lieutenant looked at her sharply. “Then are you quite sure it was Mr. Groener you heard coming back from the kitchen?”
“Certainly. I couldn’t be mistaken. He always made a lot of noise, even in slippers.”
The Lieutenant grunted. “And when did you finally get up?”
“When Mr. Groener came rushing into the hall and knocked on Mrs. Labelle’s door and told her to call the police.”
The Lieutenant stood up. “There’s one more thing I’ve got to ask you,” he said quietly. “Are you Mr. Groener’s mistress—or were you once?”
“No, never,” she said. “Oh, Mr. Groener was an attractive man, but she spoiled him for everyone.”
“But now that she’s no longer here…” The Lieutenant left that question hanging in the air and so did Mrs. Graves, though it seemed to start something working in her that almost had the look of hope. “That’s all then,” he told her. “Thank you. Ask Cohan to send in Mrs. Labelle.”
When they were alone, Detective Zocky said, “Hey, I’ll bet you got the same idea as me. There was no trigger for this suicide. But what if Groener had been having his coffee in Miss Grave’s bedroom, and his old lady knew it or slipped out and caught them. That’d make a wow of a trigger.”
“I take it Miss Graves is a dike no longer,” the Lieutenant said. “Ambidextrous at least.”
“Hell, that was just descriptive. I’d say Groener and this dame are practically the same type.”
“Yes, they’re both tall, good-looking people with gray hair,” the Lieutenant observed drily. “Bound to start making violent love to each other every chance they get.”
“Well, what the hell, it was a perfect set-up for them,” Zocky persisted. “The wife passed out and Mrs. Labelle the tolerant type, no doubt. I know this Groener puts on the pious reformed-alky act, but most ex-boozers his age do that. Why, my father-in-law—” He stopped talking as the dining room door opened and high heels clicked in the hall.
Mrs. Labelle was quite as sylph-bodied as Miss Graves but she dressed it in thinner silk—crimson. Under the coiled and gleaming blonde hair her face looked much younger. Its expression was teen-age, in fact, avid and pert. But there were more tiny wrinkles around the corners of her eyes and mouth than there had been around those of Miss Graves.
“Do I sit there?” she asked, pointing at the brightly lit chair under the bridge lamp before the Lieutenant could. She took it, tucking her feet under her and carefully drawing down her skirt after giving him a flash of high leg.
“This is quite an event for me,” Mrs. Labelle announced. “I’ve always been fascinated by police work. You must find out so many strange things about how people behave in funny situations.”
“Right now I’m just looking for a few everyday facts,” the Lieutenant said. “How did the Groeners happen to be staying here?”
“They’d lost their apartment without warning. I always feel very sympathetic toward them, because Mr. Labelle is an alcoholic too. We’re getting divorced. He lives at a hotel. Perhaps you can tell me what makes alcoholics tick, officer. They’re beyond me. I always told Mrs. Groener that if she’d just control her drinking—not stop altogether and get gloomy like her husband—but just take enough to feel bright and happy and relaxed—”
“Miss Graves now,” the Lieutenant interrupted. “How did she happen to be here?”
“I invited her. I thought the Groeners ought to have all their old friends around them.”
“And perhaps you were interested in seeing how people behave in funny situations,” the Lieutenant said. “For instance, Mrs. Groener thinking her husband’s mistress was sleeping in the same apartment.”