Conway had listened with increasing incredulity and relief to this elaborate scenario. So long as she’s that far off the track, he thought, I don’t have to worry. “Have you done much writing, Betty?” he asked. “Because what you’ve dreamed up is the damnedest fiction I’ve ever heard.”
“U-um,” she said noncommittally. “Well, after I’d figured this all out, I realized that my coming and staying with you was the luckiest thing that could have happened to you. Because as long as I was in the house, she couldn’t come here, and you couldn’t go to see her, so there was a good deal less chance of your throwing suspicion on yourself. So then I decided that the best thing would be for me just to stay on here with you — and tell you why, of course.”
“Then why did you get the apartment?”
“That’s just it — I didn’t. I went to Grauman’s Chinese, and two broadcasts, and did some window-shopping, and came home. And then that detective talked to me.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I didn’t tell him anything. I said he talked to me.”
Conway breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank heaven you didn’t tell him about these pipe dreams — that’s all he’d need. What did he have to say to you?”
“He was very apologetic about his insinuations of yesterday. And then he said he liked you, and my being here made it very tough on him and the police department. Because if the neighbors or anybody found out about it, and it got to the papers, it would throw suspicion on you right away, and then the police would have to do a lot of investigating, which would be very unpleasant for you, even though they knew you were innocent. And then I suddenly realized that it had just been my own conceit that made me think there was another girl, and that you had a perfectly good reason for wanting to get rid of me. So I knew I’d better get out of here — and quick.”
“That, unfortunately, makes sense,” he said. “And it’s the first thing you’ve said that does,” he added. “It’s not that I have anything to hide, and I’m not worried about the police. But the newspapers would have a field day if they found out that an attractive — to say the least — young woman had moved in with me the day after my wife’s body was found. I don’t know what they’d make of the fact that she was my half-sister-in-law, but you can be sure it would be something nasty. So, much as I’d like you to stay here, now that I’ve gotten to know you, I think it would be a lot better for both of us if you got a place of your own — at least for a while.”
“Shall I go to a hotel tonight?”
He considered for a moment, and the prospect of seeing her again at breakfast overrode common sense. “I don’t think it’s as urgent as that,” he said. “You can go out tomorrow and find a place. I’d go with you, but I might be recognized, and that wouldn’t look too well, either.”
“I’ve certainly loused things up,” she said.
“You haven’t,” Conway assured her. “And I’m grateful to you for wanting to be on my side.” It would do no harm to let her think he believed her. And, he reflected, perhaps he did.
She came over and sat beside him on the settee. “Thank you for saying that,” she said. “It’s been so awful for you, and all I’ve done is complicate things, when I really wanted to be of some help, in some way. Please believe me.” She was very close; he looked down at the soft, warm eyes, the red, inviting mouth, and it was inevitable: his arms went round her, and their lips met, gently at first, then with increasing ardor, as each felt the urgency of the other’s desire.
She drew away and looked up at him gravely. “You didn’t love her, did you?”
“No,” he said, and then stopped. Had this whole performance been a trap? He kissed her again. If it was, it was a snare of perfumed velvet and satin and rose petals. This time it was Conway who broke the embrace and looked at her. “I didn’t love her. But you were wrong in thinking that I couldn’t stand her or that she was driving me crazy, or that I killed her. I just wasn’t in love with her any more.”
She raised her face to his, and her humid lips mutely asked to be kissed. Afterward, her arms tightly about him, she asked, “Do you love me?”
“Yes. Yes — I think so. It’s all a little bewildering.”
“I know,” she said.
“When did you begin to think you loved me?” Then she laughed. “That sounds awfully ingenue, doesn’t it?”
“Somehow I don’t seem to mind.” She kissed him lightly. “It was sometime between dinner and when I first kissed you,” he said.
She sighed contentedly, her head against his shoulder. “It’s been a wonderful evening. Since we’ve been home, I mean,” she amended. “Why did Bauer take us to that frightful drugstore?”
Conway smiled at the recollection. “He had the waitress there who served Helen and me before we went to the movie. That was his unique method of having her identify me.”
“Why did you tell him all that stuff about Helen having a roll of money, and your ‘little disagreements’?”
Involuntarily Conway tightened, and he knew that the girl must have felt it too. “It just happened to be true,” he said, and was conscious that his voice had taken on an aggressive note. He stroked her hair and tried to recapture their earlier mood. “I’m glad you didn’t find an apartment,” he said.
She drew away from him and sat erect. “Don’t say that,” she said.
“Why not? Don’t you love me?”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Of course I do. Since the moment I walked in the door, I guess. I’m going to hate being alone and away from you. But — it isn’t any good.” She slipped from his arms and stood looking down at him. “Not unless we trust and believe in each other. And I don’t believe you’ve told me the truth — I don’t believe you trust me enough to tell me. I don’t blame you for anything you’ve done — not anything. I understand. But if we’re to mean something to each other, I’d have to know the truth — I’d have to know that you knew you could trust me that much. I can’t love a man who has to be suspicious and on guard every other minute we’re together.”
“You’re wrong,” he said without hesitation. Then he looked at her, rose, and flicked his cigarette into the garden. The answer had been instinctive, but now he was wallowing in a sea of indecision. She knew the truth — and for a moment he longed for the peace he could find only with someone who did know, someone with whom he could drop his eternal vigilance. He looked at her: the luminescent eyes were guileless; she was a figure of utter enchantment, offering him love and tenderness and peace. Then he brought himself up sharply and realized he was being naive. The alluring charm might be bait, the promised tender raptures could be the promise of a noose around his neck. The gamble was too great: he had to play it alone.
“I’ve told you the truth,” he said. “I had nothing to do with Helen’s death.”
“Please,” she said. “Don’t tell me if you can’t trust me. Just don’t lie to me.” She stabbed out her cigarette. “It’s getting late, and I want to start out early tomorrow. I’m going up to bed.”
He looked at her slim loveliness silhouetted in the light from inside, and moved toward her. Gradually, as though in spite of herself, she responded to his kiss. But when she drew away, she looked at him with cool composure.
“Just to save any embarrassment,” she said, “I think I ought to tell you that I’m going to lock my door. Good night.”
She had been gone for several minutes before Conway’s reason was able to dominate his emotions. Then, tormented and desolate as he was, he decided that perhaps it was just as well.
Chapter eleven