“You do,” Sands said. “Leave your report in my office.”
Sands hung up and turned back to the commissioner. Day was frowning disapprovingly toward the telephone.
“Horton is inclined to be insubordinate,” he said. “What does he say?”
Sands told him.
Day yawned. Why couldn’t people behave themselves, especially on the Sabbath? “All right, Sands. Is that all? Have you any men posted in Mrs. Shane’s house?”
“One.”
“Good. We can’t afford to have any more Americans murdered.”
“I know that,” Sands said coldly. “Maybe I can dig up a couple of Ukrainians for you.”
Day smiled pleasantly. “Same old Sands.” He escorted Sands to the door, talking affably. Sands went out to his car.
Same old commissioner, he thought sadly.
10
Dinah was the first one down for breakfast the next morning.
Jackson was plugging in the percolator when she came in. He straightened up and gave her a deferential smile but his eyes were a little surprised. It was only eight o’clock for one thing, and she was dressed to go out. For another, she seemed to have forgotten the past forty-eight hours. She looked almost the same as on the day she had arrived, her thin mouth fixed in a permanent half smile, her eyes narrowed and knowing and cold.
She wore a yellow wool dress with a brown belt tight around her waist. Her hair was combed back from her smooth white forehead.
“The usual, Jackson,” she said.
“Yes, Mrs. Revel.”
On his way to the kitchen he passed behind her chair and looked down at her. He could see the layers of powder on her face and the skin under her eyes like gray-white crepe paper. He was a little shocked.
When he came back with her orange juice he said, “Lovely morning, isn’t it?”
She looked out of the window. An uncertain sun was feeling its way down through the thin air. She turned her eyes away.
“I don’t like the fall,” she said. “It’s lonely. It’s like death.”
Jackson laughed. He wanted the laugh to tell her that he understood exactly but that it was an absurd idea. He wanted it to tell her to forget Williams, who was a bum, and to realize that he, Jackson, was a very remarkable fellow.
It didn’t do any of these things. It sounded like a giggle and Dinah’s voice cut through it: “What’s funny?”
“I— Nothing. I was simply being agreeable,” he said lamely. “I wanted to cheer you up.”
“One sure way not to cheer me up is to giggle in my ear, Jackson. Let’s get that settled.”
“Yes, Mrs. Revel.”
He poured her coffee and handed it to her silently. She lit a cigarette and watched him through the smoke.
“You don’t belong here, Jackson.”
Jackson was very polite. “No, madam.”
“Why are you here?”
“Three square meals and a bed, madam. And I find the work congenial.”
“I suppose you write poetry in your off hours, or movie scripts or novels all about life as it never has been and never will be lived.”
Jackson thought of the half-finished novel locked in a drawer of his bureau and his “No, madam,” was not convincing.
But Dinah was paying no attention anyway.
“Realism,” she said. “Sometimes I think some of these realistic sex novelists have never been to bed with a woman except perhaps in a house catering to the college trade. They go to the movies and they see a big love scene and they think, now if I replaced that Schiaparelli nightgown with a two-bit tablecloth from Woolworth’s, I’d have life as it really is. I don’t know why it’s so much realer to go to bed with a man on a squeaky cot than on an inner spring mattress. But there it is. I’m told it’s so.”
There was a gasp from the doorway. Jane was standing there with her mouth open and her eyes widened, and, Dinah thought cynically, with her ears pricked up.
“Dinah! Honestly!” She came into the room with indignant little bounces. “What will Jackson—? I mean, hadn’t you better—? Oh dear!”
She sat down, exhausted from the effort of trying to express herself, and told Jackson in a very cold voice that she was not at all hungry and he was to omit the bacon from her usual breakfast.
Jackson went out.
“You eat like a bird, my love,” Dinah said silkily. “A robin, for instance. Do you know that a robin will eat sixteen feet of earthworms in a day? Someone told me that once. I thought it only goes to show, doesn’t it?”
“Sixteen feet? Really?” Jane sipped her grapefruit juice thoughtfully.
Dinah leaned across the table.
“Jane,” she said, “I know you’re dumb. But how dumb? That’s what I keep asking myself: How dumb is Jane?”
“Honestly, I never—”
“Is she, I ask myself, dumb enough not to know that Duncan was smuggling something across the border in his luggage to hand over to Revel?”
“Smuggling?” Jane repeated, frowning. “Oh, you must be crazy, Dinah. Duncan had plenty of money. He had no need to smuggle anything anywhere.”
“Maybe he wasn’t doing it for money. Maybe he wanted some excitement. God knows if I had to look at that dead pan of yours every day I’d want some excitement too.”
“You’ve had your excitement!” Jane cried. “You’ve disgraced the whole family with your dreadful marriage.”
“It was dreadful,” Dinah said softly, “hut it was a marriage.”
When Jackson came back he found them glaring at each other silently. He said, “I hope you find your egg satisfactory, Miss Stevens.”
She started and glanced down at the plate in front of her. “It’s fine,” she said. “Thank you.”
A short time later Prye appeared, exchanged greetings, and sat down beside Jane.
“You look spry,” Dinah observed.
“I should. I’m trying hard,” Prye said, grinning. “Every morning when I wake up I remind myself that I am thirty-eight and that it becomes increasingly difficult to look spry as one ages. So I hop out of bed, attach my smile, and look spry.”
“Are you really?” Jane said.
Prye looked at her in surprise. “Am I what?”
“Thirty-eight.”
“At least thirty-eight,” Prye said solemnly.
“How does it feel?” Jane asked.
“It feels like eighteen,” Prye said. “I’m still trying to decide what I’ll be when I grow up.”
“If you grow up,” Dinah said.
Prye smiled at her. “Claws all sharpened up this morning, Dinah?”
“Dinah is in a vile mood,” Jane said sadly. “I don’t see why we can’t all be pleasant to each other. I’m sure I’ve suffered more than anyone has and I’m not being unpleasant. Live and let live, I say.”
“An unfortunate phrase,” Dinah said. “As most of your phrases are.”
Jackson placed a rack of fresh toast on the table and went out again.
“If Jackson doesn’t take to blackmail,” Prye said, “it won’t be from lack of material. We’ll all have to be more careful of our words.”
Jane put down her toast and drew a deep breath. “I agree with you. Dinah’s too... too informal. She was telling Jackson about sex when I came in.”
“Cheer up,” Prye said. “Maybe he’ll pass it on to you.”
Jane got up from the table and faced them both accusingly. “Do you know what I think?”
“No,” Prye said.
“I think you’re all mean, just plain mean!”
She swept out of the room and slammed the door behind her.
“So do I,” Prye said. “I feel rather mean this morning, don’t you?”
“Quite,” Dinah said.
“It’s probably the weather. Or the toast. I have a theory about this toast. Want to hear it?”