“I’m asking you for Enders’ report.”
His face purpling deeply under its sunburn, Mr. Flynn went behind the desk, opened the center drawer. In it was a little pile of scratch-pad sheets, with penciled memoranda on them. He found the one he wanted, handed it to the Sheriff. “O. K. She registered at these three hotels on these three dates under these three names, the men she was with all different. She was seen by several different people at each place and didn’t even try to conceal who she was. There you are. That’s the Enders report.”
“Are those other officers’ reports?”
“...Yes.”
“Hand them over.”
Sylvia, like most actresses, had made an art of relaxation: it held the secret of bright eyes, glowing color, and the vivacity needed in front of a camera. She lay on her bed now, eyes closed, hands folded on her stomach, no part of her moving except her chest, which rose and fell a little as she breathed. She had put on a black dress, but even without this she would have looked pale, haggard, and worn in the half light that came in from the street, for it had been in truth a trying day. But she was not asleep, for an alert hand went out at the first sound of the phone: she had given orders that she was to be disturbed for two calls only: her sister, or the Sheriff. The desk informed her that the Sheriff was in the lobby. She jumped up, put on her shoes, patted her face, and went out to admit her guest.
He came in, and at her invitation sat down on the hotel sofa, not answering her question about her sister. She turned on the lights she wanted, poked up the fire the hotel had made for her. Then she went over, sat down beside him and contentedly put her head on his shoulder. “Is there any news?”
He said nothing, and his arm did not go around her. After a long time he said: “Yes.” His voice had hanging fur on it, and shook. For the first time she really looked at him then, and became aware of his eyes. They hadn’t softened since they sobered Mr. Flynn, and by now, indeed, were a little frightening. He waited a long time before he went on, in slow, husky, measured words: “This morning, after saying you killed a man, you told me you thought you did right. I couldn’t hardly believe my ears then. I’ve killed two men since I held this office, and I never felt I did right. I felt I did what I had to, but I hated it. Now I know what you meant. Because I could kill you, as I sit here right now, and I wouldn’t feel it was wrong. I’d feel it was right.”
“And why do I deserve to die?”
“Because you’ve been deceiving me, and the people of this country, and the people of the whole world. Because you’re not what you pretend to be. Because you’re living a dirty, rotten lie.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
From his pocket he took a wad of crumpled scratch-pad sheets. Smoothing out the first one, he studied it and said: “On March 8 you spent the day at the Tumble Inn Roadhouse thirty miles south of here with a man that was known to several people there as Ted Genesee, a croupier at the Luckybuck Club not two blocks from here. You signed in as Mr. and Mrs. Edward Gentile, you spent the day, and at five o’clock he drove you back here. On April 2 you spent another day with Genesee at the Garden motor court, on the road east. On April 3 you didn’t bother to leave town, but checked in with him at the Westhaven, down at the depot. On April 5 you switched off from Genesee to a Cuban named Carlos Loma, that handles the stick for Dawson’s crap game over at the Monte Carlo. You went with him to Bill’s Place, down the line, and Hollister’s Dude Ranch, and Hack Schultz’s camp up in the mountains.”
He laid aside the first slip and picked up the second. He talked for ten minutes, giving names, dates and places, and when he got through he was twisting his face, and occasionally squeezing his mouth with his hand, to keep from sobbing. When he had some sort of control he burst out: “How could you come over to me this morning with all that talk about hating those cheap pictures and tell me you were going to make more like The Glory of Edith Cavell? And how could you pretend to be Edith Cavell?”
“I didn’t pretend to be Edith Cavell.”
“You did.”
“I was an actress playing a part.”
“You used her name and said her words and died her death and for two hours you pretended to be her. And all that time you were nothing but a common trollop that anybody could have, and if I were to go out of here and leave you dead on the floor right now, it wouldn’t be any more than you deserve, or any different from how women like you generally wind up.”
She started several times to say something, each time swallowed it back. Then she sat with a fixed, desperate look on her face, staring into the fire. He said: “You told me this morning you killed your husband.”
“I did kill him.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“A jury will, I think.”
“You want them to?”
“Dimmy says it was accident, and so will I.”
“Your sister killed your husband.”
“No! No!”
“I say she did. If he said he would marry her and then he wouldn’t do it, that would be enough reason for a whole lot of women. You didn’t have any reason.”
“I told you it was the only way out.”
“Except to sign his contract.”
“I tell you I did it.”
“Will you sign a confession you did it?”
“...Yes.”
“Then you better write it. Because I’m telling you, I know who did it.”
After a long time she got up, went over to the writing desk and wrote:
May 13
To Whom It May Concern:
Today, at approximately 12:30 P.M., at the Galloping Domino Gambling Hall, I shot and killed my husband, Victor Adlerkreutz. My sister, Hazel Shoreham, was not present, but will probably say she did it in order to save me. This will not be true.
She got up, handed it to him, and resumed her seat on the sofa. He went over to the desk, put it in an envelope, marked it “Shoreham Confession.” Then he said: “This ends the matter.”
“Am I under arrest?”
“Your sister has been found.”
“She — where is she?”
“It’s bad news.”
Briefly, under terrible emotion, he told her what had happened. Then he said: “Sylvia Shoreham, I love you more than any human being on earth. I’d give my right arm to be able to touch you right now. I’d give the other arm if I could be the one that helped you through this sorrow that must be heavy to you, I know how heavy from the way you’ve tried to protect that girl. But I don’t forget that judge, in the picture. He knew that woman hadn’t done what she said she did, but he did what he thought he had to do just the same. That girl can’t ever be tried for her crime now. She’s beyond human justice, and she’s beyond speaking for you, too. I’ve called an inquest at ten o’clock tonight, and at that inquest I’m going to let Spiro and his friends make it accident. I’ll let you bury the dead, and have no more trouble about it. But if you try to go into pictures again, I have this and I’ll use it. And you can tell Spiro that The Glory of Edith Cavell goes back in the can and it stays there. You are not going to pretend to be something you’re not any more, if I’ve got anything to do with it.”
Her face didn’t move a muscle, and he got up. “Isn’t that funny? At lunch, at that lunch we were going to have, I was going to ask you to start a fund for our tuberculosis hospital. It’s a poor state, and we got no hospital and we ought to have one, and it could be built now, for soldier use, and then turned back to us later. That’s what I was going to ask.”