“...She killed your husband?”
“Yes. I didn’t actually see it. I had my back turned. But there can’t be any doubt about it. Then I decided I was going to say I did it, and I made her leave, so nobody would find her there.”
The tears were streaming down Sylvia’s face now, so it was some time before anybody remembered Ethel. Then the Coroner said: “Well — let’s let this girl finish. All right, she put the gun down.”
“She put it down, and Vic put it back. But then she picked it up again and put it in her mouth. I opened my mouth to scream, because I knew she was going to kill herself, but Vic grabbed the gun and got it out of her mouth and then it went off and—”
“What?”
The two voices, saying the same word, cut Ethel off, Sylvia’s voice vibrant with joy, Mr. Layton’s with utter consternation. Then Sylvia broke into a little sobbing laugh. “Thank God, thank God, — I might have known she never deliberately killed anybody. She was too sweet.” Then she ran over, put her arms around Ethel, and kissed her.
From the shadows, with a sic-semper-tyrranis clangtint, came Dmitri’s voice: “Sylwia Shoreham is windicated! SYLWIA SHOREHAM IS WINDICATED!”
In a hotel bedroom, in the black hour before dawn, a phone was ringing. A woman dressed in mourning entered, answered, said: “Send him up.” Then she went into a dark sitting room, opened the door into the hall, and sat down before a fire that had burned down to red embers. Soon there was a tap and she said: “Come.” A tall man came in, closed the door, and stood uncertainly before her, near the fire. He said: “I didn’t want to wait till tomorrow before asking you about those bodies.”
“My husband was Dimmy’s friend. I think he’d prefer that Dimmy took over the funeral. My sister — do I have to say at once?”
“Whatever you decide, if you’ll call my office there’ll be somebody there that’ll attend to everything without you being put to any trouble.”
“That is very thoughtful of you.”
“And I want to apologize.”
“We started the day with an apology.”
“For shooting past a big moment in your life, without knowing it was a big moment. That’s what you said. And that’s what I have to apologize for now, except that my big moment was a much bigger moment than yours was, and it was also a big chance, an opportunity, and I didn’t have sense enough to know it. If I had just had a little faith in you, I might have known that there was some explanation, that your sister was being mistaken for you in these hotels.”
“Even if I deliberately deceived you?”
“Yes. And... I come to say goodbye.”
He stood awkwardly a few moments, perhaps wondering if she would offer her hand. When she didn’t and when she made no reply, he turned, took one or two slow, heavy steps toward the door.
“Parker!”
He turned, and she said, “Come here.” When he was near to her she took both his hands in hers, pulled him down beside her on the little two-seater that faced the fire. “What are you talking about, goodbye? After the way you stood by me there at the hearing, and cleared me, and all the rest of it? And let me tell you something: If I ever found out that you had got those reports, and didn’t all but kill me, I’d never forgive you. Now: Did you blackjack any money for your hospital? Is that what you were doing out there all this time.”
“They all contributed a generous amount.”
“How much insurance do I get?”
“That was the funny part. After tearing in like a wolf, they were just as friendly as you could imagine when the jury came in with practically the same verdict, ‘in an accidental and unintentional manner,’ with nothing but the names changed. The chief claim adjuster, man by the name of Gans, said: ‘We’ll go the limit to hang it on you if you used loaded dice — we mean you play straight, because we do. But if you play straight, we’ll pay any just claim quick as any other gambler pays off, and with no more griping. We don’t have to gripe, or gyp. The percentage is working for us, and we’ve got to win.’ You’ll collect a hundred thousand in all.”
“Then I’ll give that, and fifty I have saved up, to the hospital. Altogether, now, how much does that make?”
“Little over quarter million.”
“That’s a start.”
“It assures the institution.”
“...About Hazel.”
“Just say, and I’ll attend to it.”
“I don’t know whether to keep her here, or send her back to California. You see, I’ll want her with me, and—”
“You staying here?”
“I might be getting married.”
He took her in his arms, held her close, looked at her gravely, almost reverently. Then he said: “I’m going in the army.”
“So am I.”
“Doing what?”
“Nursing I think.”
Presently he said: “Up to this minute, I been a little bit in love with Edith Cavell, as well as Sylvia Shoreham. Now I’m not. I’m all in love with you. Because listen: I want you to go in the army. I want you to be a nurse. But I don’t want you to wind up like Edith Cavell did. You hear what I’m telling you?”
“I’ll wind up as I wind up.”
“...That’s right.”
“When do you go in the army?”
“Twentieth of next month.”
“Then the day after that, I go. But — until then, can’t we be with each other? Can’t I be here with you?”
“The sun’s coming up.”
“So it is.”
“Come on, I want you to see your home.”
In the gray dawn, a car slowed down on a deserted road, and turned in at the stone posts that marked the entrance of a ranch. In it were a man and a woman, saying nothing, sitting very close.