“I see,” Prye said. “You want to help the investigation along. Anonymously, of course. And the motive behind this good deed?”
“I want Dinah to get out of this house and go some place where she’ll be happy.”
Prye looked at him. “Very noble, but useless, I assure you. Dinah will never be happy. Why didn’t you have some children, Revel?”
“Dinah didn’t want them.”
Prye nodded. “Naturally she didn’t. I’ve known very few women who didn’t throw a fit when they learned they were pregnant, especially the first time. After all, it’s a big job. You can’t expect a woman to assume it without some misgivings.”
“It’s too late now,” Revel said. “There’s barely enough time to save our skins.”
“Your skin?”
“My skin especially,” Revel said with a thin smile. “As it stands now I’m safe enough. Sands has nothing against me but a vast suspicion.”
“And a letter.”
“A letter, but not necessarily to me. There are thousands of Georges in the world. But suppose the letter was to me and suppose I told you what it meant, could you convince Sands you figured it out for yourself?”
“I can convince most of the people most of the time,” Prye said modestly. “Besides, whatever you tell me in this room will not be witnessed. If you wanted to deny everything afterward, it would be my word against yours.”
Revel stubbed his cigarette carefully.
“Yes,” he said. “Duncan did a lot of traveling. Have you found that out?”
“No.”
“He did. Keep that in mind. I want you to realize this too: neither Duncan nor I stood to gain much by this deal, almost nothing, in fact. But a third person, any third person, stood to gain a hell of a lot. Remember that, too.”
“Why were you in it?”
Revel shrugged. “Excitement, perhaps. Motives mean nothing. I’m a realist, and only romantics take motives into consideration.”
“You’re confusing enough without dragging in romanticism,” Prye said wearily. “What was the deal?”
“I said I wouldn’t tell you outright.”
“All right. Was it the first?”
“The second. I’ve given you your clue, that neither Duncan nor I had much to gain. It was Duncan’s idea in the first place. He was a little batty, I think, and very bored.”
Prye said, “Dry up. I’m thinking.”
After five minutes he raised his head and glanced at Revel. “You’d go to prison if it were found out?”
“Undoubtedly,” Revel said. “If you’d like to think it over I’ll go back to bed.”
“Hell, yes,” Prye said. “You can’t sleep so you come in here and unload your problems on me so I can’t sleep.”
Revel smiled. “It’s all quite simple,” he said, and walked out and closed the door behind him.
Prye sat in a chair until two o’clock, smoking. When he woke up he was still in the chair and the sun was streaming in on his face. He sat up and discovered that he had a stiff neck and a sore throat. Cursing Revel roundly, he went down the hall to the bathroom.
While he was shaving he began to whistle “Yankee Doodle.” He laid down his razor, interested. Why “Yankee Doodle”? he wondered.
Prye believed that the songs people whistled or sang were not chosen haphazardly. There was always a reason, a chain of circumstances behind the choice. Sometimes the reason was a simple one: whenever he and Nora quarreled Prye found himself whistling “Stormy Weather” with monotonous regularity.
But why “Yankee Doodle”? The tune kept running through his head long after he had forced himself to stop whistling it.
When he went into the dining room he found that he was the last to arrive. He greeted the others and took his place beside Nora, who was having a cigarette with her coffee.
“Hello,” she said. “You’ve been thinking again. You’re all wan and haggard.”
“I shaved,” Prye said. “Jackson, two boiled eggs, four minutes.”
Mrs. Shane said, “I’m glad you’ve come, Paul. We still haven’t decided what to do about the wedding presents. I’ve phoned everyone, of course, but it is a problem. Now if we could set another definite date—”
“We’ve gone into that,” Nora said.
“Not thoroughly,” Mrs. Shane protested. “Suppose the case is never solved?”
Dinah glanced at Prye and said smoothly, “That possibility doesn’t worry Paul. Does it, Paul? I shouldn’t be surprised if Paul has already solved it and is simply keeping us in suspense like the enigmatic detectives of fiction.”
“Don’t be silly, Dinah,” Nora said sharply.
The others were silent. Dinah was gazing into her coffee cup as if she were trying to see into the future. Revel was sitting across from her, not looking at her but knowing how she looked and what she wore.
Jackson came in again very quietly. Dinah’s head jerked up.
“I wish you wouldn’t creep, Jackson!”
“Sorry, Mrs. Revel,” Jackson said politely. “Inspector Sands is here and wants to see you.”
“Me?” Dinah said.
“Yes, madam.”
Dinah rose and waved an apology to Mrs. Shane. “Here I go.”
She went out into the hall. Sands was standing by the front door holding his hat in his hands. He still wore his topcoat and he looked pale and rather uncertain, Dinah thought.
“Hello,” she said cheerfully. “Won’t you come in?”
He didn’t move, but stood regarding her soberly.
“What were you doing in Stevens’ room on Sunday night?” he said. “I saw you.”
“You didn’t actually see me, Inspector.” She stood facing him, smiling. “The curtains were drawn.”
“The door was locked,” Sands said. “I locked it.”
“I unlocked it,” she said dryly. “Not hard. I was looking for something.”
“Find it?”
“No.”
“Know what it was?”
“No. But it would be a parcel, wouldn’t it? And I knew Duncan. He was too suspicious and sly to hide anything where he couldn’t watch it. Therefore I searched his room.”
“I was in Boston yesterday,” Sands said.
“The home of the bean and the cod,” Dinah said. “So what?”
“Stevens was a crook.”
“Of course,” Dinah said. “He hadn’t enough space between his eyes. Therefore, he was a crook.”
“Why?”
“For the hell of it. He had enough money.”
“Had he?” Sands paused. “He leaves his sister barely enough to keep her.”
“Keep her in mink, you mean.”
“I mean, keep her in food,” Sands said, frowning. “He had a dollar in his bank account.”
“You’re crazy.” She was staring at him in disbelief. “Or you’ve been taken for a ride. I’m charitable. I vote for the ride.”
“Neither. He had no money. He spent forty-two thousand dollars in the past month. I want to know what he spent it on.”
Dinah smiled. “On himself. Or buying off one of the hepatica’s men. Anything at all.”
“You can’t help me?”
“No, sorry. You might try asking Revel.”
“I have. That’s all I want to ask you now, Mrs. Revel. If you’re going back to the dining room you might tell Sammy Twist I want to see him.”
She looked at him for a moment and said, “You are crazy. Who’s Sammy Twist?”
Sands said, “A young man who’s disappeared.”
“Disappeared? Well?”
“His landlady reported this morning that he went out around ten last night and he never came back.”
“He never came back,” Dinah repeated slowly. “I think I’m rather envious of your Sammy Twist.”