"I understand that Mrs. Ralston will get the bulk of his fortune."
"Of course she will. And it's only fitting. She married him for that purpose, I believe."
"How long had they been married?"
"Ten years. She was about thirty at the time, and a very pretty piece — I use the word in its seventeenth-century sense. Within six months of their marriage she had become a hopeless invalid. I've suspected, perhaps without justification, that Mrs. Ralston knew at the time of their marriage that she had the disease, and deliberately inveigled Henry into it. He was really an innocent-hearted man. She was a widow without means, you see, and had a young son to support. Even if that is the case, however, I don't begrudge her the money. It kept a sick woman in comfort and brought up a fatherless boy, and thus served a useful purpose, don't you think?"
I said, "Yes."
"There's one other thing," Alexander Ralston said, his exaggerated eyes regarding me blandly through his glasses. "This is an absurd hypothesis, but I think I should introduce it. Assuming that I was intending to kill my brother for his money, I should certainly have waited a few months. His death at the present time has netted me ten thousand dollars. After Mrs. Ralston's death, which you may or may not know is imminent, Henry's death would have netted me incomparably more. His entire fortune, in fact."
I am not easily embarrassed, but I was embarrassed. "I never thought of such a thing," I said unconvincingly.
"Please don't be uncomfortable. It's your duty to think of such things. But now if you'll excuse me, I have some work to do."
I told him it had been a pleasure to meet him, and went away.
When I got back to the Valeria Pueblo, Al was in his room reading a newspaper. He put it down when I opened the door.
"The accident didn't make much of a splash," he said. "Say, that's a crack, isn't it? But I notice there's nobody in swimming in the pool today."
"There will be tomorrow. In a week it'll be forgotten. What about John Swain's alibi?"
"He was on the ship all night," Al said. "He played poker till 4 a.m., and has four buddies to prove it. I talked to one on the phone."
"That lets him out, then. Did you get anything on Jane Lennon?"
He winked and smiled lasciviously. "You're damn right. One of the black girls who cleans the bungalows gave me the straight dope on her. I knew that dame had too much to be going to waste."
"Spill it."
"She's got a boy friend in one of the other bungalows. Her racket is to wait until Mrs. Ralston goes to sleep, and then slip out for a few hours. Mrs. Ralston takes sleeping powders, see, so the nurse thought she was safe enough. But she was supposed to be on twenty-four hour duty, and she was taking a chance."
"Where was Jane Lennon last night?"
"With her boyfriend. The black girl saw her going back to her own bungalow just before dawn. But I don't see how you're going to use that against her. It gives her a better alibi than she had before."
I said, "Is Mrs. Ralston's wheelchair self-propelling? I mean can she move it herself?"
"Sure, if she wants to. But the nurse usually pushes her. My God, you're not suspecting Mrs. Ralston now?"
I said nothing.
"You're a sap if you are," Al said. "She had no motive. The dame's going to be dead in a couple of months."
"That's right," I said. "Let's go and see Mrs. Ralston."
"Look here, you take it easy," Al said. "You'll make trouble for both of us."
"The widow should be informed that her husband was murdered," I said. "I'm going to inform the widow."
Mrs. Ralston, John Swain, and Jane Lennon were sitting at an outside table in the patio. They had just finished their lunch, and a waiter was removing their debris. When he had glided away with his loaded tray, I stepped up to the table with Al beside me.
"May we join you for a moment?" I said.
"Why certainly." Mrs. Ralston looked up at me brightly, and with a movement of her right hand turned her wheelchair in a quarter circle.
I sat down facing her and said, "Last night about a quarter to one Mr. Sablacan and I left your husband at the door of your bungalow and he presumably went to bed. Since he had been drinking he probably fell into a deep alcoholic slumber. An hour or so later he was drowned. This morning I found him in the swimming pool."
"I know those things," Mrs. Ralston said. "Is there any point in repeating them to me?"
"This is very painful for my mother," John Swain said. "I'll have to ask you to put a stop to it." He dropped his cigarette on the tiles and ground it angrily under his heel.
"I have reason to believe," I said, "that Mr. Ralston was not drowned in the swimming pool."
Mrs. Ralston slumped backward and covered her face with her hands. John Swain stood up and leaned across the table towards me looking as if he would like to bite me.
"This is too much!" he said. "I'll see Mr. Whittaker about this." He marched away into the hotel.
"O.K.," I said to Jane Lennon. "Take her away. I'd just as soon be telling it to the police."
Mrs. Ralston removed her hands. She looked old, and I felt sorry for her. I felt sorrier for Mr. Ralston.
"The police?" she said.
"Somebody drowned him in the bathtub," I said. "He was very light."
Mrs. Ralston picked up a glass ashtray from the table, and threw it at my face. It struck my forehead and made a gash there. While I was dabbing at the blood with a handkerchief, Mrs. Ralston called me many unusual names in a loud voice which attracted the attention of everyone in the patio. Jane Lennon wheeled her away. I was glad to see her go, because Mrs. Ralston's face had become very old and ugly.
Mr. Whittaker came running out of the hotel with John Swain at his heels.
"What's all this!" he cried.
"Call the police again," I said. "Mrs. Ralston seems ready to confess."
An hour later I was sitting with Al in his room sipping my first beer of the day and wishing away a headache.
"You took a hell of a chance," Al said.
"No, I didn't. I made no accusations. All I said was that somebody had drowned him in the bathtub. Mrs. Ralston said the rest."
"I still think it's lucky for you she broke down and confessed. You didn't have any evidence."
"I had one piece of evidence," I said. "The whole case hung on it. The water in Mr. Ralston's lungs was pure city water. He couldn't have inhaled it in the pool, because the pool water has a good deal of chlorine in it. A bathtub was practically the only alternative."
"I don't see how she did it," Al said.
"Morally, it's hard to see. Murder always is. Physically, it was feasible enough. He weighed scarcely a hundred pounds. There was nothing the matter with her arms and shoulders, and a wheelchair can be a pretty useful vehicle. She simply wheeled him to the bathtub, held his face under water until he stopped breathing, wheeled him out to the pool, and dumped him in. It must have been difficult, and she stood a chance of being caught at it, but she hadn't much to lose."
"And nothing at all to gain. That's what I don't get. What good is a million dollars to a dame that's going to die any day?"
"She wanted to leave it to her son," I said. "He'd have been cut off from all that money if she had died before her husband. Ever since the doctors told her she was going to die, she must have been waiting for her chance. She probably caught on to the nurse's trick long ago, and bided her time, waiting to use it. That swimming party last night gave her her opportunity. Mother love is a wonderful thing."
I thought of another wonderful thing then, and I began to laugh though it wasn't very funny. In California a murderess can't inherit her victim's property. So Johnny Swain is still as far away from a million dollars as the rest of us.
Strangers in town