“If you want to know,” Thelma Thatcher said, “why don’t you go somewhere and ask someone who might be able to tell you?”
“I intend to,” Sid said. “Thank you for helping me, however reluctantly.”
She turned and walked out into the hall, Wilson loping after her to the door and holding it for her as she left. Driving downtown, she reviewed the sequence of events as Thelma Thatcher had related them, and she was convinced that every word of the version was true, simply because it accorded with her own notions of what had probably happened, which she had expressed, indeed, to Cotton McBride on Saturday last.
Downtown, she parked in the lot beside the Hotel Carson and went into the lobby. The clerk at the desk was young and overflowing with ideas and the juices of glands, but he was, although susceptible, reluctant to give out information about a guest, even a dead one, that might be considered confidential, especially to a woman, however stimulating, who happened to be the wife of the man who was suspected of having made the guest dead. Finally, though, he confided that Beth Thatcher had checked her key at the desk late in the afternoon before the night she was killed, and that she had not picked it up again, and therefore could be assumed never to have returned to her room. This was what Sid wanted to know, and she went, knowing it, to see Chauncy at the bar.
She sat on a stool at the bar and claimed his attention. He moved into position opposite her, brown hands with polished nails placed flat on the bar.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“I’ll have a bourbon on the rocks, if you please.”
The stark simplicity of the order spoke well for her character, and Chauncy, after filling it, lingered and watched her discreetly.
“Do you know who I am?” she said.
“Yes, ma’am. Some faces I forget pretty easy, and some hard. Yours would be a hard one.”
“Chauncy, I have a notion that you are an exceptional person. I’ve often heard my husband speak highly of you.”
“Mr. Gideon Jones is a very generous gentleman.”
“I suppose you know that he’s been put into jail.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. An error, I’m sure.”
“Did you know the lady he’s erroneously suspected of killing?”
“Only by name and reputation. I remember her from years ago and from the recent evening she was here.”
“The evening she drank Gimlets with Mr. Jones?”
“Yes, ma’am. An innocent episode, I assure you.”
“I don’t suspect Mr. Jones of anything more than a kind of amiable and temporary soft-headedness, Chauncy, and so you needn’t try to protect him. The lady is the one I’m interested in, and I wonder if you can remember how long she was here after Mr. Jones left.”
“Between half an hour and an hour. I regret that I can’t be more exact.”
“Do you remember if she was alone all that time?”
“Oh, no. She was not alone. Several people stopped at her table to speak with her, and one or two, as I recall, sat with her until she left.”
“When she left, did she leave alone?”
“I think not. I have a vague remembrance of someone accompanying her.”
“Does your vague remembrance include a vague remembrance of who that someone might have been?”
“It doesn’t, ma’am. It must have been one of the faces I forget easy.”
“Is it your judgment, then, that you don’t remember the person who may have left here with Beth Thatcher because the person may have a face that it doesn’t please you to remember?”
“That’s my judgment, ma’am. I believe it’s a talent that becomes developed in certain of us who serve in positions that deny us the right to discriminate in our contacts.”
“Thank you, Chauncy. You’re a gentleman and a philosopher, and it has been a pleasure to talk with you.”
“The pleasure was mine, ma’am, and I hope that Mr. Gideon Jones is soon released from jail.”
On this elevated plane of mutual respect, which was genuine, Sid parted from Chauncy. She was tired and sticky after a busy time on a hot day, and so she went home and had a shower and lay down on the bed in our room to think about what she had learned and where she now was in relation to it, and where she was, so far as she could see, was somewhat behind where she had been when she started. As stated, she was convinced that Thelma Thatcher had told the truth. She was also convinced that Wilson Thatcher had not been foolish enough to kill anyone over a matter that could have been settled much less dangerously otherwise, although Wilson’s potential for foolishness was demonstrably considerable, and that left me out in front all alone, in jail and available. This trend of thought left her feeling depressed and inadequate and wanting to cry, and so she cursed a little and closed her eyes and took several deep breaths and fell sound asleep.
To her surprise, when she woke, it was quite late, going on six. Suddenly she remembered that tomorrow night was the night of the meeting of the discussion group, and she realized that it would be absolutely impossible for her to go. It would be necessary for her to tell Rose Pogue at once, and so she went downstairs to the telephone in the hall and dialed Rose’s number.
“Hello,” she said. “Is that you?”
“Yes,” Rose said. “It’s Sid?”
“Yes, it is,” Sid said, “and I should have called you sooner, but it simply didn’t enter my mind.”
“Darling, I was simply thunderstruck when I read in the paper what had happened to Gid. If there’s the slightest thing I can do to help, you mustn’t hesitate to call on me.”
“There is something, actually. I’ve just remembered the discussion group tomorrow night, and I can’t be there. Would you mind doing it alone?”
“I won’t say that I wouldn’t mind ordinarily, but under the circumstances it can hardly be helped.”
“It’s very kind of you, Rose. I’m sorry to leave you in such a fix.”
“Wait a minute. Don’t hang up. Were you about to hang up?”
“I was about to, yes.”
“I wanted to ask you if matters will be cleared up soon. Do you think so?”
“At first I thought so, but now I’m not quite so optimistic.”
“I have been told that Beth Thatcher was quite attractive.”
“I only saw her dead, and she was beautiful.”
“How unusual. So often dead people aren’t. I must say that you are being very steadfast and loyal, and I admire you for it.”
“I’m not being steadfast and loyal at all. I am only lonely and wanting Gid home.”
“Of course you do, darling.”
“Thanks, Rose. Good-by.”
Sid went out onto the back terrace and began to think about the conversation between Beth and me, her husband, as I had related it, to see if anything significant could be detected there that had heretofore escaped detection. She had a good memory for details, and she began at the beginning, with the ringing of the phone, and went over them all carefully once, after which she began to go over them again.
The treacherous cicadas were noisy in the trees. In the pale light, the moon was pale in the sky. In the back yard across the hedge, Jack Handy, our neighbor, was watering the grass and making comments in a loud voice to Mrs. Jack Handy, who was apparently somewhere in the house. On a near street, moving rapidly, was the tinkling sound of the siren bell of an ice-cream man.