Even in the excitement of their own miraculous escape from that rapacious crew — Pink said they had the morals of a bulldog, and that they wouldn’t have escaped at all if not for the greater lure still within the Spaeth house — Val’s stomach lay six inches lower than its usual position merely recalling Glücke’s baffled pertinacity.
Throughout the ordeal Rhys had maintained a calm that served only to infuriate the policeman. He was monosyllabic about most things; and about the important things he would not talk at all. The Inspector went over and over the ground: The Ohippi partnership, the holding companies, the collapse of the securities, Rhys’s quarrels with Spaeth, his movements during the afternoon — oh, thought Val, to have been able to tell the truth! — his familiarity with the house, with swords...
Her father could have cleared himself at any moment of the interminable, ferocious, accusing inquisition by merely stating his alibi. But he did not; and Val, sick and exhausted, knew why he did not. It was because of Walter. Walter.... She hardly heard Glücke’s diatribe. Through the verbal storm leered Walter’s face with its incomprehensible expression.
Rhys was deliberately allowing himself to be involved in a nasty crime because Walter meant something to her — Walter, who had always been so boyish and naïve and blunt and was now so frighteningly drawn into himself.
“I’ll fix some eats,” said Pink. “You must be starved.”
“I couldn’t eat now,” said Valerie faintly.
Rhys said. “Pink’s right,” but he was abstracted.
“I laid in a raft of stuff from the market this afternoon,” said Pink gruffly, “on my way back from the studio. If I left it to you capitalists—”
“Oh, Pink,” sighed Val, “I don’t know what we’d do without you.”
“You’d probably die of hunger,” said Pink.
Mibs Austin’s place at the switchboard was occupied by the night clerk, a fat old man in a high collar; so they went through the lobby without stopping and took the cranky elevator upstairs. Val stumbled along the red carpeting of the corridor behind the two men. She wondered dully why Rhys and Pink, who had unlocked the door of 3-C, stood so still in the foyer.
But when she reached the apartment door and looked in she saw why.
Walter was sitting in the living-room on the edge of the armchair. He was sitting in a strangely stiff attitude, his dirty hat crushed on the back of his bandaged head and his eyes like two steamy pieces of glass.
They looked at Walter, and Walter looked back at them, and his head wagged from side to side as if it were to heavy for his neck.
“Stinko,” said Pink, wrinkling his nose, and he went to the windows and threw them wide open.
Rhys carefully closed the corridor door and Val advanced two steps into the living-room and faltered: “Well?”
Walter’s tongue licked at his lips and out of his mouth came a mumble of sounds that conveyed nothing.
“Walter. How did you get in?”
Walter placed his right forefinger to his lips. “Shh. Sh — snuck up. Sh — swiped housh-key. Deshk.”
He glared up at her from the armchair in an indignant, almost a resentful, way.
“Well?” said Val again. “Haven’t you anything to say to me, Walter?”
“’Bout what? Tell me that. ’Bout what?”
“You know very well,” said Val in a low voice. “About — this afternoon.”
“What ’bout ’sh afternoon?” said Walter belligerently, trying to rise. “You lemme ’lone!”
Val closed her eyes. “Walter, I’m giving you your chance. You must tell me. What happened today? Where’s pop’s coat? Why did you—” she opened her eyes and cried— “why did you lie, Walter?”
Walter’s lower lip crept forward. “None o’ y’r bus’ness.”
Val ran over to him and slapped his cheek twice. The marks of her fingers surged up in red streaks through the pallor beneath the stubble.
He gasped and tried to rise again, but collapsed in the armchair.
“You drunken bum,” said Val passionately. “Coward. Weakling. I never want to see you again!”
Val ran into her bedroom and slammed the door.
“I’ll handle him,” said Pink. Rhys quietly sat down on the sofa without removing his coat. He just sat there drumming on the cushion.
Pink hauled Walter out of the chair by his collar, half strangling him. Walter sawed the air feebly, trying to fight. But Pink pushed his arm aside and dragged him into Rhys’s bathroom. Rhys heard the shower start hissing and a medley of gaspy human sounds.
After a while Walter lurched back into the living-room, the shoulders of his plaid jacket drenched, his bandaged head and face dripping. Pink tossed a towel at him and went into the kitchen while Walter dropped into the armchair and tried with ineffectual swipes of the towel to dry himself.
Rhys drummed softly.
“Put this away, big shot,” said Pink, returning with a tall glass. “What a man!”
Walter groped for the glass and gulped down the tomato juice and Tabasco, shuddering.
Pink lit a cigaret and went back to the kitchen. Rhys heard the clangor of clashing pans.
“I think,” said Rhys politely, “I’ll go down to the drug store for a cigar. Excuse me, Walter.”
Walter said nothing. After a moment Rhys rose and left the apartment.
Alone, Walter inhaled deeply and stared fog-eyed at the dusty tops of his suède sport shoes. Pink was slamming dish-closet doors in the kitchen, growling to himself.
Walter got up and tottered to Val’s door. “Val,” he said thickly.
There was no answer. Walter turned the knob and went in, shutting the door behind him.
Val lay, still in her hat and coat, on the bed, staring numbly at the Van Gogh on the opposite wall. Her hat, a toque, was pushed over one eye rakishly; but she did not look rakish. She looked cold and remote.
“Val.”
“Go away.”
Walter reached the bed by a heroic lunge and dropped. His eyes, bleared and shadowed, peered anxiously at her through a haze. He put his right hand clumsily on her slim thigh. “Know ’m drunk. Coul’n’ help it. Val. Val, don’t talk t’me ’at way. I love you, Val.”
“Take your hand off me,” said Val.
“I love you, Val.”
“You’ve a fine way of showing it,” said Val drearily.
Walter sat up with a jerk, fumbling to button his collar. “Aw right, Val. Aw right, I’ll get out. ’M drunk.”
He rose with an effort and stumbled toward the door.
Val lay still, watching his weaving progress across the room... She jumped off the bed and flew past him to the door, setting her back against it. Walter stopped, blinking at her.
“Not yet,” she said.
“’M drunk.”
“You’re going to answer me. Why did you lie to Inspector Glücke? You know you were in that house at 5.35 this afternoon!”
“Yes,” muttered Walter, trying to stand still.
“Walter,” Val’s heart sank. Her hands, spread against the door, gripped it harder. She could almost see past him through the rubbed aspen-crotch panel of her Hepplewhite bureau, where a certain automatic pistol lay hidden under a layer of chemises. She whispered: “Walter, I must know. Did you kill your father?”
Walter stopped rocking. His lower lip crept forward again in a curiously stubborn way. At the same time his bloodshot eyes shifted, almost with cunning.