“Not a thing?” he said.
“Except some stocks.”
“Good stocks?”
“I don’t know. Duncan was awfully clever, so I guess they must be good stocks.”
“But there aren’t enough of them?”
“Not nearly,” she said sadly. “Not nearly enough.”
Her hand lay limp and soft and helpless on the table near his own. He touched it.
“How nice you are!” she whispered.
“You won’t starve,” he said. “Everything will be all right, I’m sure. What I mean is — some man — marriage, you know—”
The bell rang in the kitchen and Jackson said, “I have to go.”
“Oh, don’t go.”
“The bell—”
It rang again. He was stroking her hand. Gosh, he thought, she smells swell.
After the third ring Dinah strode in, eyed the tableau coldly, and said, “All tied up, Jackson?”
Jackson said nothing.
“Has she reached the stage where she’s borrowed your handkerchief?” Dinah said. “No? Good. She may have one of mine.”
“No, thanks,” Jane said with dignity. “Really, I don’t understand the meaning of this intrusion.”
Dinah smiled grimly. “No? Well, I’d hate to explain in front of Jackson. Come along. We need a fourth for bridge.”
“I don’t want to play bridge.”
Dinah grasped her shoulder, not gently. “You can always sneak back to the kitchen in the dark.”
Jane threw Jackson an appealing glance. He flushed and averted his eyes.
Jane said sweetly, “Thank you for a very stimulating conversation, Jackson. Perhaps we can continue it some time when there are no rude people to interrupt.”
“Do,” Dinah said. “Hire a hall.”
She followed Jane out. Jackson let out his breath and sat down violently in his chair.
Dinah put her hand on Jane’s arm and pressed it. “Now that I have saved Jackson from the well-known fate which is worse than death—”
“What do you mean?” Jane demanded haughtily.
“You are subtle like a cyclone. I shall be equally subtle — lay off Jackson. He’s just a boy.”
“He’s old enough to take care of himself.”
“Certainly, and you’re old enough to take care of him. But I repeat, lay off Jackson.” Dinah paused outside the drawing room. “Has your bridge improved any?”
“I don’t like bridge,” Jane said. “I’m only playing as a special favor, because I’m not as selfish as the rest of you are. I don’t mind putting myself out for another person.”
“Another person such as Jackson.”
“I don’t believe in the class system and besides he went to Harvard, didn’t he? And he’s just as good as I am.”
“Better,” Dinah said. “Much, much better.”
They went inside. Nora and Prye were sitting at the card table talking and dealing out bridge hands.
“Here she is,” Dinah said. “It’s too bad the Humane Society doesn’t offer a medal for rape prevention. I’ve always wanted a medal.”
“That isn’t funny,” Jane said distantly. “You have an evil mind which twists the most innocent thing.” She turned to Prye. “I’m not a very good bridge player because I think spades and clubs look so much alike. But I’ll oblige you and Nora.”
She sat down, looking every inch the martyr, and the game began.
It was three o’clock.
Sands was still in the library sitting at the big desk with his head resting on his hands.
The afternoon dragged, and the minutes moved across his mind as if they had club feet. An old man’s afternoon, Sands thought.
It’s all over but the hanging. The hangings my job and I’m not up to it. I don’t want to hang anybody.
Depression crept over him like viscous oil, making his limbs slow and heavy. Only his mind moved, in quick, futile circles like a moth.
You can’t swim in oil.
There are certain types of insanity, he thought, where you’re so depressed you can’t move at all. You sit all hunched up like a foetus, or like Sammy—
Thinking of Sammy made him think of the sheets. They were burned, of course. You could bum almost anything in a furnace that size, even the weapons perhaps, and the empty bottle of eyedrops and the contents of Sammy’s pockets. If you were smart and in a tight corner you could burn the money too, you could burn up your own motive. It would mean that you’d murdered three people for nothing, though.
That would be a hell of a feeling, Sands thought.
The telephone rang. He moved his hands through the oil, slowly, and picked up the receiver. It was the call he’d been waiting for and it might mean a hanging.
“Sands? Horton speaking.”
“Go ahead.”
“Well, it’s no go. I’ve been talking to the Crown attorney and he says you’d be a damn fool to risk a case on the evidence of a graphologist.”
“There are other things.”
“Circumstantial,” Horton said.
“All right.”
“Of course I’m positive and you’re positive. Can’t you get one single witness, say at the Royal York?”
“I can try again.”
“Try yourself. Darcy’s not too bright.”
“I’ll try,” Sands said, and hung up.
He picked up his hat from the desk, exchanged a few words with the policeman in the hall, and went out to his car.
From the windows of the drawing room Prye saw him leave. He turned to the others at the card table.
“The inspector is leaving.”
Jane looked up from her intense study of her cards. “Oh, do be quiet, Paul. I’m trying to play this wretched hand you gave me and I don’t know whether to play the king of—”
“My God,” Dinah said. “Will you stop telling me what cards you’re holding?”
“You really shouldn’t,” Nora said as mildly as possible.
“Well, you shouldn’t listen,” Jane said, “if you don’t want to know. Besides, I don’t want to play any more. It’s so dull!”
The cards were thrown in without argument. Dinah went over to the table and poured herself a drink.
“So the inspector is gone,” she said softly. “I rather like having him around, don’t you, Jane?”
“No,” Jane said.
“It reminds you of everything, I’ll bet. Jane, you have a lovely nature, a heart as soft as thistledown, and a head no harder.”
“Shut up,” Jane said. “I don’t like you and I don’t like your voice. If I ever told you what I really thought of you—”
“Go on. You tell me and I’ll tell you. Everything goes.”
Jane sniffed. “I couldn’t be bothered. I’m not malicious.”
Dinah was looking at her curiously. “No. No, I don’t believe you are malicious. But you’re something I don’t like.”
“Quite an exchange of pleasantries,” Prye said easily. “May I play too?”
Dinah said, “Keep out of this, Paul.”
“I’m in it,” Prye said. “I’ve been in it for some time. It would be a pleasant change for you and Jane to take a crack at me instead of each other. One at a time, girls.”
Jane said, “You’re too carefree.”
“Carefree like the old man of the mountain,” Prye said. “Your turn, Dinah.”
“I don’t like people who know too much about other people.”
“I don’t,” Prye said.
Jane was looking at him very seriously. “Do you know all about people?”
“No. I know a little about some, nothing at all about others.”
“About me?” She leaned forward, her eyes fixed on him.
“Nuts,” Dinah said, coming over quickly and placing her hand on Jane’s shoulder. “If you want to know about yourself, you ask me.”
Jane frowned at her and shook her hand from her shoulder. “Go away. I want to talk to Paul. I’m serious. I’m tired of you interfering in everything I do, Dinah. Even Ja—”