“The relationship between Addison Stearne and Nita Moline,” Mrs. Right said, “was rather peculiar. I thought it was founded on an intimacy. I realize now that there is some possibility the man regarded himself, in a way, as her father, and...”
“Go ahead, Pearl,” Hilbers said as she hesitated.
“And,” Mrs. Right went on, “that he actually was her father.”
Duryea kept any expression whatever from showing on his face.
“Miss Moline is a very peculiar young woman. She is very poised, and she knows exactly what she wants. I don’t know whether you’re familiar with that type, Mr. Duryea, but it’s a deadly combination in a woman. Men are fascinated by that calm poise. I think at first it arouses their interest because it challenges them.”
Hilbers broke the thread of silence which followed her re-mark by saying in his peculiarly powerful voice, “Never mind the philosophy, Pearl. Mr. Duryea wants to know what happened. Your husband was desperately in love with Nita Mo-line. She didn’t return his affection. Now go on, Pearl, and get it over with.”
Mrs. Right said nervously, “Of course, that’s one of the things a man doesn’t consult his wife about — but I knew. Arthur had worshiped the ground Addison Stearne walked on. Everything that Addison did was all right in Arthur’s eyes. Well, Addison kept throwing Nita Moline and Arthur together. Addison hated me. He wanted to break up our marriage. He was very, very successful. Arthur fell madly in love with Nita Moline.”
“I don’t know when Arthur first realized how far he’d succumbed to Stearne’s influence. I don’t know when I first realized it, but Arthur and I had been drifting apart. I’d told him dozens of times when Addison was trying to come between us, trying to split us up. At first, he laughed at the idea. Later on, he’d fly into a rage whenever I said anything against Addison Stearne. So finally we had a sort of tacit understanding that when he was going somewhere with Addison Stearne, he could just go right ahead, and I’d find something else to do. It was that which kept me from realizing until recently that Addison was throwing Arthur and Nita together as much as he possibly could. Then it dawned on me all at once.”
“Tell him how you found out, Pearl,” her brother said.
“My husband told me.”
“When was this?” Duryea asked.
“Last Friday. He told me that we’d been drifting apart, that he thought it was foolish to continue trying to keep up the pretense, that he hadn’t loved me for a long time, but that recently he’d fallen in love with someone else. I insisted that he tell me who it was, and then was when I learned for the first time.
“Well, naturally, I was angry and hurt. I don’t think that it was because my heart was broken. I guess some of it was because my vanity was hurt, and I tried to hurt him. I knew him well enough to know the one thing I could say which would hurt him. Perhaps you know enough to understand how it is, Mr. Duryea. When people have been really intimate and have one of those bitter quarrels, they try to tear each other’s emotions to shreds. They want to hurt. But I wouldn’t have said it, if I hadn’t thought it was the truth.”
“What did you say?” Duryea asked.
“I made a remark about his being a convenient hitching post for Addison Stearne’s cast-off mistress.”
For a moment, there was silence in the room.
“Then what?” Duryea asked.
She said, “Good heavens, the man certainly should have had eyes in his head. But apparently the idea struck him for the first time, and it struck him like a blow. I never saw him like that. His face went absolutely white. I could see from the way he stared at me that at last the truth was dawning in his mind. There had been so many, many things that indicated it, and he had been so blind to them. When they were pointed out to him, and he saw them all at once, it was a terrible emotional shock.”
Hilbers rushed to his sister’s defense. “The point is,” he explained to Duryea, “that Pearl was absolutely sincere, and heaven knows she had plenty of grounds to suspect that was the case. It wasn’t until this morning that Pearl and Miss Moline had a talk, and Pearl learned for the first time that there was... well, that there might be another side to the story. Personally, I still don’t believe it. I think it’s simply an ingenious explanation that Nita Moline concocted after she knew there was no possibility she could be contradicted. I think it’s something she and her lawyer had thought up, to dress up a nice case for her if someone contests the will. The point is that it’s upset Pearl so very terribly.”
“You know how it is when women fight. They claw at each other, and...” He broke off and glanced with quick apology at Milred.
“Don’t mind me,” Milred said with a grin. “I never bar any holds myself.”
“Well,” Hilbers said lamely, “Pearl and Miss Moline had one of those fights this morning. Then I came to the house and found Pearl in tears. She’d been thinking over what Miss Moline said, and had come to the conclusion that if there was any truth in it, she’d done something terrible in telling Arthur what she had. The more she continued to brood over it, the more she got the idea she’d been responsible for everything that happened. I’ve told her time and time again that the evidence shows it couldn’t have been murder and suicide. As I understand it, it was very plainly a double murder. I don’t think Miss Moline or her relationship to Addison Stearne entered into it at all. But Pearl has been driving herself frantic. This afternoon she had hysterics, and I decided to bring her up here, let her tell her story, and see if there’s any chance her idea of what happened might be right. In that way, she’ll know definitely. I think anything would be better than this suspense.”
“I know it’s right,” Pearl said in a voice which somehow carried conviction. “As soon as I made that statement to Arthur, he stood stunned for several seconds, then he turned without a word and walked upstairs. I heard him open and close the bureau drawer. For a while the significance of that didn’t occur to me. Then he left the house without saying anything to me. I kept thinking back over our quarrel, and suddenly the significance of that bureau drawer occurred to me. I ran upstairs and opened the one where he kept his gun. The gun was gone.”
“Then what did you do?” Duryea asked.
“Then I tried to get in touch with Addison Stearne, and Addison wouldn’t see me. I know he was in his office, but he’d left word that I was never to be permitted to get in touch with him.”
“Did you actually see him take the gun?” Duryea asked.
“No, of course not. But I heard him open and close that bureau drawer, and then the gun was gone.”
“I keep telling her,” Warren Hilbers said, “that she’s torturing her imagination. Arthur could have taken that gun out of the drawer any time within a month and for a dozen different reasons. She’s never even bothered to check up on it before. It may be in his car — in his office. He might have given it away.”
“But the evidence doesn’t indicate a murder and suicide,” Duryea said.
“Of course it doesn’t,” Hilbers said. “Only now Pearl thinks...”
“Stop it, Warren,” Mrs. Right interrupted. “There’s been altogether too much of that. We’re not going to say anything more.”
Hilbers said cautiously, “I’ll put it this way, Mr. Duryea. Pearl feels that Arthur would have left a note vindicating himself to the world, explaining the reason he did what he was doing, and, above all, explaining to Nita Moline.”
“Now, then, if Pearl is right, and if it was a murder and suicide, the gun is missing. That note is missing. Personally, I’m absolutely convinced Pearl has worked herself into a state of hysteria. I can’t believe that...”