“Relax, Eddie, we're only batting the breeze. Flo tells me you live in a flea-bag room, spend all your time at meetings and picketing. Why don't you go back to school, reach a stage of personal comfort, then work for the good of others? Since we agree this is a selfish world.”
“George, you talk like a man from another world. How could I sit in a classroom, think of debits and credits, the hollow things, when I feel fascism in the air, see them getting set for more flatcars of humans shorn of everything, even a smile? Why I'd...” He set up, held his head in his hands. “Damn headache has returned again.”
I sat up. “My fault, I was egging you on. Let's forget talk. We'll take a swim to cool off, then go fishing. Blowfishes are the most amazing and stupidest creatures in the world. Even beat us humans.”
We didn't go in for any more heavy talk, fished and swam for the rest of the week, had a swell time. And then on the Friday before my week was up, I received a special delivery from Flo. There were two newspaper clippings in the envelope, nothing else. One was dated the same day, that Friday, and was merely a death notice, cold, impersonal, that read:
CONROY,—HENRY, beloved brother of Marion.
Services at Universal Chapel, 10 a.m.
Service private.
The other clipping bore a Wednesday dateline. It was a half column story about Hank falling out of a window of his fifth story apartment, as he was standing on a ladder, hanging some curtains. It said Hank must have lost his balance, crashed through the partly open window to his death. His wife, Lee Conroy, was using the basement washing machine at the time of the accident...
I put the clippings down and was full of strange thoughts. First (and quickly) a wild thought that I now had seven thousand dollars... if I wanted to keep the money. Then vague puzzled thoughts: What an odd way for poor Hank to the... he was always so careful. Why wasn't he being buried from a church? Why no mention of his wife in the obituary notice? And above all, why the rush to bury him?
These were tiny thoughts, the big one was the tempting idea that nobody knew I had Hank's money. It was a hideous thought, well mixed with my sincere sorrow over Hank's death... yet there wasn't any point in denying—especially to myself—that it was very much in my mind.
It was a fact.
Chapter 3
THERE WAS no reason why I should rush back to town—aside from the fact I think funerals are stupid anyway. I spent a curious week-end, full of secret elation that the money was mine, while my righteous self argued I must return the money. Nor did I overlook another point: I had no way of knowing whether Hank had told anybody else about the seven thousand. I was sure he hadn't, but I didn't really know.
On Monday, when I reached the office, I played Scoundrel in the second at Aqueduct, a four to one shot, and was both alarmed and pleased when he won. I wondered how much truth there was in my hunch. I decided I better quit stalling. I called Hank's sister and a maid told me, “Mrs. Keating has gone to the country for a week, on the advice of her doctor.” I gave her my name and felt better—it all fitted in nicely with my plans. First, I had a bit of work to catch up on at the office, a feature spread we were getting out on our Georgia dealers, and a speech to write for one of the vice-presidents—which we would later run as an article. Harvey couldn't write speeches, he always made the speaker sound too sharp and acid, not realizing that the purpose of an after-dinner speech is to say nothing in the mildest way possible. Secondly, I wanted more time to think things out about Hank's money, although I didn't know exactly what there was to think out.
Of course I could easily have gone directly to Hank's apartment, talked to his wife, but I had several phoney excuses for not doing that. He had said he didn't want her to get the money; that had started the entire mess. (Although he never said he wanted me to keep it as against giving it to his wife.) Then too, it was best I wait and see what was what. Suppose Hank had left a will, leaving the money to somebody besides his wife? If I gave her the seven grand I might be tied up in a law suit. They weren't good reasons, but they convinced me—which wasn't a difficult feat. So I waited—gave his sister another week to return from the country. The fact that lawyers hadn't called me made me feel happier—there probably wasn't a will.
Three weeks to the day after Hank was buried, I called his sister. I never cared much for Marion Keating. She was a short woman in her middle fifties, the type that spends her time hunting for better girdles, false breasts, hair dyes that are impossible, and a raft of make-up. She was sure she didn't look a day over thirty. (Although she would have happily settled for forty.) She had been on the edge of the society-social-blueblood swindle ever since she was 20 and married Edward F. Keating—Yale, badminton, sailing, and a comfortable amount of solid securities and stocks. The frantic keeping up with the Astors had left Marion looking worn and tired, and most boring. She moved and talked with jerky, nervous movements.
Mr. Keating was out—in fact I'd never seen him except when his picture appeared in the Sunday Times sport page many years ago. He had won a dinghy race, or something, and looked quite proud—and useless.
Her loud make-up made her weary, tired facial muscles stand out in sharp contrast, accented her age, but at first Marion acted as coy as a deb. After pouring me a drink and telling me about her week in the country, who had entertained her, or maybe it was the other way around, and the usual small talk, I was able to get in a few words. I told her what a shock Hank's passing had been and she suddenly pressed my hand between her two small damp thin ones, said, “George Jackson, my dear, I'm very glad you have come. The war—all those years—broke Hank's ties with the boys he knew. And somebody has to do something!”
“Yes? Do what?”
“That bitch murdered him!” Marion shrilled.
My mouth fell open like a ham comedian's.
“Oh I know her. Stayed in my house, right here, for over three weeks, and I locked my bedroom door every night. I thank God that Edward was in California, on business, during those weeks. He would have horsewhipped that... slut. George, nobody knows her wickedness, the slyness, the horrible cunning! She did it, she...”
“Hold up Marion, talk sense,” I said. “After all... well... murder. I thought Hank fell from a ladder, through the window, while hanging curtains?”
“A likely story! You knew Hank. Was he a drunk, or a very conservative, careful man? Falling through the window—he was pushed! Oh I know what I'm talking about—he told me he was trying to get rid of her. God knows what ever possessed him to marry that awful creature. The girls I could have had for him... with position and money. But you knew Hank, his high-sounding ideals. And he had to marry this whore, and now she's killed him. She wasn't satisfied driving him crazy, she had to push him out the window!”