Giles didn’t want to look at her. He was always a little frightened of her. In their relationship it was Polly who was the realist, he the dreamer; she was the leader, he the follower.
“I’d better go up and tell Martin,” she said. “He’ll want to know.”
“Do you still want to leave? Do you want me to go up and pack?”
“What?” she said, as if she had forgotten about it, had even forgotten him and who he was and why he was there. “I’ll have to tell Martin.”
“It was in the winter,” Sands said. “For a couple of months there’d been stories of children being chased in the park on their way home from school. The stories were vague and nobody was ever arrested. Then one night Mildred Morrow was out visiting a friend. She didn’t come home.”
Sands paused. “The friend was a widow who lived in the next house. Her name was Lucille Lanvers. Her statement was that Mildred had left her house before eleven o’clock, ostensibly to go home. Dr. Morrow was at the hospital on a confinement case and when he returned at one o’clock Mildred Morrow still hadn’t come home. He called his sister Edith who was in bed and they went over to Mrs. Lanvers’ house. The three of them looked around the park for an hour or so and then called in the police.
“About six o’clock the next morning we found Mildred Morrow lying against a tree with her head split open. Her purse and some valuable jewels were missing. The weapon wasn’t found but we were pretty sure it was an axe. There was a heavy snowfall during the night, the body was almost completely covered and while there were indentations in the snow where foot tracks had been they were useless to us.”
“Who had the case?” Bascombe said.
“Inspector Hannegan. I was a patrolman at the time.
I rode a motorcycle.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Bascombe said. “A motorcycle.”
Sands smiled quietly. “Sure. Hannegan figured the case was simple robbery and he had a great time hauling in all the boys who’d ever stolen a balloon from the dime store. As a favor, he let me fool around with the case from another angle. I got nowhere. There seemed to be no motive for the crime except robbery. I talked to the family and to Mrs. Lanvers, but I had no official standing. Then Hannegan got tired of the case and closed it after a few weeks.”
“What was your verdict?”
“I had none. Dr. Morrow had an alibi. His sister Edith puzzled me, she’s one of these rather unstable people, and I had an idea that she was jealously fond of her brother and probably preferred him without a wife. Mrs. Lanvers was a quiet restrained woman, quite plain-looking, not as pretty as she is now, if her photographs don’t lie. She was Mildred Morrow’s best friend, and here again there was no motive but the vaguely possible one that she wanted Mildred’s husband.”
“And got him.”
“Yes, but it’s not unusual for a man to marry his wife’s best friend. It’s happening all the time, especially in cases like this where the man was profoundly in love with his wife. Morrow was crazy about Mildred. He was very sick for a long time after she was killed.”
“And Lucille nursed him, I suppose,” Bascombe said with a cynical smile.
“I don’t know,” Sands said. “But it was the children who worried me most. I don’t know much about children and I found their reactions very queer. The girl was ten or eleven at the time. She acted as though nothing had happened and whenever I asked her a question she would stare at me and pretend she hadn’t heard. The boy was a couple of years older, going to Upper Canada College at the time, he acted wild and crazy. He laughed a great deal and offered to fight me. He said he’d take me on with one hand tied behind his back provided I promised to keep clear of his spine which he’d had broken once in a football game.”
“What happened to him?”
“He’s now literary editor of the Review.”
“My God!”
“The only one of the family I’ve seen since is the girl, Polly. I came across her three years ago in court. She was testifying in some charity case. She recognized me and turned her head away.”
“Funny she remembered you.”
“Yes. Funny. Her father didn’t when I phoned. Anyway, Hannegan closed the investigation and I was called off. Now I think it’s opening again.” He looked across at Bascombe. “Don’t you?”
“Yeah,” Bascombe said.
Miss Flack emerged from the small cubicle where she’d been gilding the lily.
“It surely is nice of you to offer to drive me home,” she said. “To tell the honest truth I was scared to death when you said you were policemen. Now I’m not a bit scared.”
“Good for you,” Sands said.
Miss Flack was deposited at her apartment.
“What now?” Bascombe said.
“We look around.”
“I think somebody told me once that Toronto was fifteen miles east and west and nine miles north and south.”
“Is that a fact,” Sands said.
“What I want to know is who’s holding the baby, you or me?”
“We’re sharing it until it’s old enough to choose.” The car shot ahead almost as if it knew what direction to take, like a well-trained horse. “I want to get to Mrs. Morrow first.”
Mr. Greeley and his lady friend were at £ dime-a-dance hall out on the pier. Neither of them felt at home. The place was too classy. Greeley was ashamed to take off his overcoat and show his old suit. By the end of the second dance the sweat was pouring down his neck and the effects of the champagne were wearing off. Greeley needed something stronger than champagne.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” he said.
“What for?” the woman said. “I’m having a swell time.”
“Hell, if it’s rear-bumping you want you can get it in a street car and cheaper.”
“We just get some place and then you want to go.”
“I got a date, anyway. Come on.”
He walked out, not even looking around to see if she followed.
When they were outside she said, “You got no manners, Eddy.”
She buttoned her coat. The lake slapped at the pier with cold contemptuous hate.
“Jesus, Eddy, let’s go home.”
“Quit crabbing.”
“I don’t like it here.”
“Well, for Christ’s sake, wait a minute.”
He pushed aside the flap of his overcoat, and stabbed something into his thigh through his clothes. His thigh felt sore but his mind began to see things right again, he had the right perspective now. Life was a stinker, but he, Greeley, had it licked.
Me, Greeley.
It was two o’clock in the morning when Sands called up again. Andrew hadn’t gone to bed, he was sitting in his den with a book in his lap.
“Yes?” he said into the phone.
“Dr. Morrow? Inspector Sands. Could you get dressed...”
“I am dressed. What’s happened?”
“I’m at the Lakeview Hotel. It’s on Bleacher Street, right off the Boulevard, west of Sunnyside. Your... your wife is here.”
“Yes... yes...” It was as if something had split inside his head and he had to talk above a terrible roaring. “Is she... she’s all right?”
“She’s alive,” Sands said.
“She’s sick, then? You say she’s sick? I...”
Edith appeared at the door of the den, wrapped in an old plaid bathrobe. “What is it, Andrew? Tell me this instant! What is the matter?”
“I’m coming right away,” Andrew said and laid down the phone.
“I’m going with you,” Edith said. “Whatever it is I’m going with you, you can’t face it alone.”