Well, that milkman was an honest man, that was about the only consolation I could derive from the whole thing. Even if Jimmy had given him something at the time he found the earring, he deserved a little extra bonus.
I looked across the room and I saw by the radium clock-dial that the night was nearly gone, and it was about his usual time for covering his route and making a delivery at the door. On an impulse I got up, put something over me, took two ten-dollar bills out of the bureau, and went out to our front door.
I was just in time.
“Bill, here’s something for you, for finding that earring of mine, that time.” I tried to tuck it into his hand. He wouldn’t open it.
“What earring, Mrs. Shaw?”
“You know, the one that had dropped into the empty milk-bottle out here at the door. My diamond earring.”
He was an honest man, all right. “No ma’am, I never found any diamond earring of yours. I never found any diamond earring of anybody’s. I’d sure remember it if I had.”
I managed to utter, “Good night, Bill,” and I closed the door rather quickly.
The distance from there to our bedroom wasn’t so great. It took me a long time to cover it, though.
I stood looking at Jimmy. His hand was sticking out over the edge of the mattress, the way a person’s sometimes does when he is asleep. I reached down and put my own over it and gently clasped it, in a sort of wordless pact, but not strongly enough to disturb him.
Something that he’d once said came back to me. “The right kind of a husband understands everything, forgives everything. He takes care of things for her. And above all, he doesn’t speak of it.”
And Weill had told me they’d already wanted Sonny Boy Nelson for three other killings; were looking for him anyway.
