Death Likes It Hot (6 page)

“Well, do you think it will upset things?” Mrs. Veering looked at me shrewdly.

“Upset what?”

“The party … what else? This will mean publicity for me … the wrong kind.”

I began to get her point. “We have a saying.…”

“All publicity is good publicity.” She snapped that out fast enough. “Socially, however, that isn’t true. Get a certain kind of publicity and people will drop you flat.”

“I can’t see how having a guest drown accidentally should affect you one way or the other.”

“If that’s all there is to it, it won’t.” She paused significantly; I waited for more of the same but she shifted her line of attack. “When the newspaper people come, I want you to act as my spokesman. One is on his way over here right now. But don’t let on what your job really is. Just say you’re a guest and that I’m upset by what’s happened … as indeed I am … and that you’ve been authorized to speak for me.”

“What’ll I say?”

“Nothing.” She smiled. “What else can you say? That Mildred was my niece; that I was very fond of her; that she’d been ill (I think you’d better make some point of that) and her strength wasn’t equal to the undertow.”

“They’ve taken it … her, the body I mean, to the morgue, haven’t they?” The doctor and Brexton had carried her in to the house and I hadn’t seen the corpse again.

“I don’t know. The doctor took it away in an ambulance. I’ve already made arrangements for the undertakers to look after everything … they’re in touch with the doctor who is an old friend of mine.” She paused thoughtfully, fiddling with the pile of papers on her desk. I was surprised by the rapid change in her mood. I attributed this to her peculiar habits. Most alcoholics I knew were the same: gregarious, kindly, emotional people, quite irresponsible in every way and unpredictable. I had sat next to her at lunch and what had seemed to be a tumbler full of ice water was, I’d noticed on closer examination, a glass full of gin. At the end of lunch the glass was empty.

Then she said: “I would appreciate it, Peter, if nothing were said about the … the misunderstanding last night.”

“You mean the screams?”

She nodded. “It could do me a great deal of harm socially if people were to get … well, the wrong idea about Brexton and Mildred. He was devoted to her and stayed at her side all through that terrible breakdown. I don’t want there to be any misunderstandings about that.”

“Are there apt to be any? The poor woman went swimming and drowned; we all saw it happen and that’s that.”

“I know. Even so, you know what gossips people are. I shouldn’t like one of the newspapermen, one of those awful columnists, to start suggesting things.”

“I’ll see to it,” I said with more authority than was strictly accurate under the circumstances.

“That’s why I want you to handle the press for me … and another thing,” she paused; then: “Keep the others away from the newspapermen.”

I was startled by this request. “Why? I mean what difference does it make? We all saw the same thing. The police have our testimonies.”

“The police will keep their own counsel. Just do as I ask and I’ll be very grateful to you.”

I shrugged. “If I can, I will, but what’s to stop one of your guests from talking to the press?”

“You, I hope.” She changed the subject. “I’ve had the nicest chat with Alma Edderdale who wishes to be remembered to you. She checked in at the Sea Spray this morning.”

“That’s nice.”

“I’d hoped to have her over tomorrow but since this … well, I don’t quite know how to act.”

“As usual, I’d say. It’s a terrible tragedy but …”

“But she was my niece and very close to me … it wasn’t as if she were, well, only a guest.” I realized that I was expendable. “Perhaps we can just have a few people over … friends of the family. I’m sure that’d be proper.”

“I have an invitation,” I said boldly, “to go to the Yacht Club dance tonight and I wondered, if you weren’t going, whether I might …”

“Why certainly, go by all means. But please, please don’t talk to anyone about what has happened. I can’t possibly go and I’m not sure the others would want to either since they were all more or less connected with Mildred. You of course have no reason not to.” And, feeling like a servant being given Thursday afternoon off, I was dismissed while Mrs. Veering took off for her bedroom and, no doubt, a jug of the stuff which banishes care.

An hour later, I had the drawing room all to myself, which was fortunate because the butler advanced upon me with a member of the press, a chinless youth from one of the News-Services.

I waved him into a chair grandly.

“I want to speak with Mrs. Rose Clayton Veering and Mr. Paul Brexton,” said the newshawk firmly, adenoidally.

“You must be satisfied with me.”

“I came here to talk with Mrs. Rose …”

“And now you must talk to me,” I said more sharply. “I am authorized to speak for Mrs. Veering.”

“Who are you?”

“Peter Cutler Sargeant II.”

He wrote this down slowly in what he pretended was shorthand but actually was I could see, a sloppy form of longhand. “I’d still like to …” he began stubbornly, but I interrupted him.

“They don’t want to talk, Junior. You talk to me or get yourself out of here.”

This impressed him. “Well, sir, I’ve been to see the police and they say Mrs. Brexton was drowned this morning at eleven six. That right?”

I said it was. I fired all the facts there were at him and he recorded them.

“I’d like to get a human interest angle,” he said in the tone of one who has just graduated from a school of journalism, with low marks.

“You got plenty. Brexton’s a famous painter. Mrs. Veering’s a social leader. Just rummage through your morgue and you’ll find enough stuff to pad out a good feature.”

He looked at me suspiciously. “You’re not working for any paper, are you?”

I shook my head. “I saw a movie of
The Front Page
once … I know all about you fellows.”

He looked at me with real dislike. “I’d like to see Mrs. Veering just to …”

“Mrs. Veering is quote prostrate with grief unquote. Paul Brexton quote world-famous modern painter refuses to make any comment holding himself incommunicado in his room unquote. There’s your story.”

“You’re not being much help.”

“It’s more help than nothing. If I didn’t talk nobody would.” I glanced anxiously around to make sure none of the other guests was apt to come strolling in. Fortunately, they were all out of sight.

“They’re doing an autopsy on Mrs. Brexton and I wondered if …”

“An autopsy?” This was unusual.

“That’s right. It’s going on now. I just wondered if there was any hint …”

“Of foul play? No, there wasn’t. We all witnessed her death. Nobody drowned her. Nobody made her swim out into the undertow. She’d had a nervous breakdown recently and there’s no doubt but that had something to do with her death.”

He brightened at this: I could almost read the headline: “Despondent Socialite Swims to Death at Easthampton.” Well, I was following orders.

I finally got him out of the house and I told the butler, in Mrs. Veering’s name, to send any other newspaper people to me first. He seemed to understand perfectly.

Idly, wondering what to do next, I strolled out onto the porch and sat down in a big wicker armchair overlooking the sea. Walking alone beside the water was Allie Claypoole. She was frowning and picking up shells and stones and bits of seaweed and throwing them out onto the waves, like offerings. She was a lovely figure, silhouetted against the blue.

I picked up a copy of
Time
magazine to learn what new triumphs had been performed by “the team” in Washington. I was halfway through an account of the President’s golf scores in the last month at Burning Tree when I heard voices from behind me.

I looked about and saw they were coming from a window a few feet to my left. The window, apparently, of Brexton’s bedroom: it was, I recalled, the only downstairs bedroom. Two men were talking. Brexton and Claypoole. I recognized their voices immediately.

“You made her do it. You knew she wasn’t strong enough.” It was Claypoole: tense, accusing.

Brexton’s voice sounded tired and distant. I listened eagerly; the magazine slipped from my lap to the floor while I
strained to hear. “Oh, shut up, Fletcher. You don’t know what you’re saying. You don’t know anything about it.”

“I know what she told me. She said …”

“Fletcher, she was damned near out of her mind these last few months and you know it as well as I do … better, because you’re partly to blame.”

“What do you mean by that crack?”

“Just what I say. Especially after Bermuda.” There was a long pause. I wondered if perhaps they had left the room.

Then Claypoole spoke, slowly: “Think whatever you want to think. She wasn’t happy with you, ever. You and your damned ego nearly ruined her … did ruin her.”

“Well, I don’t think you’ll be able to blame her death on my ego …”

“No, because I’m going to blame it on you.”

A cold shiver went down my spine. Brexton’s voice was hard. “There’s such a thing as criminal libel. Watch out.”

“I expect to. I’m going to tell the whole story in court. I expect you thought I’d be too afraid of repercussions … well, I’m not. When I get through there won’t be anybody who doesn’t know.”

Brexton laughed shortly. “In court? What makes you think there’ll be a court?”

“Because I’m going to tell them you murdered her.”

“You’re out of your mind, Fletcher. You were there. How could I murder her? Even if I wanted to?”

“I think I know. Anyway it’ll be your word against mine as to what happened out there, when she was drowning.”

“You forget that young fellow was there too. You’ve got his testimony to think about. He knows nothing funny happened.”

“I was closer. I saw …”

“Nothing at all. Now get out of here.”

“I warned you.”

“Let me warn you then, Fletcher: if you circulate any of your wild stories, if you try to pin this … this accident on me, I’ll drag Allie into the case.”

Before I could hear anything more, the butler appeared with the news that a reporter from the local paper was waiting to see me. Cursing my bad luck, puzzled and appalled by what I had heard, I went into the drawing room and delivered my spiel on the accidental death of Mildred Brexton. Only I wasn’t too sure of the accident part by this time.

For some reason, the newspapers scented a scandal even before the police or the rest of us did. I suppose it was the combination of Mrs. Veering “Hostess” and Paul Brexton “Painter” that made the story smell like news way off.

I spent the rest of that afternoon handling telephone calls and interviewers. Mrs. Veering kept out of sight. Mary Western Lung proved to be a source of continual trouble, however, giving a series of eyewitness accounts of what had happened calculated to confuse an electric eye much less a bewildered newspaperman.

“And so you see,” she ended breathlessly to the local newspaperman who sat watching her with round frightened eyes, “in the midst of life we are we know not where, ever. I comprehend full well now the meaning of that poor child’s last words to me, I hope the water isn’t cold.
Think
what a world of meaning there was in that remark now that we know what she intended to do.”

“Are you suggesting Mrs. Brexton killed herself?” The member of the fourth estate was drooling with excitement.

I intervened quickly, pushing him to the door. “Of course not,” I said rapidly. “There’s no evidence at all that she wanted to do such a thing; as a matter of fact, she couldn’t’ve been more cheerful this morning …”

“And I’ll send you a copy of ‘Book-Chat,’ the last one.” Miss
Lung shouted at the retiring interviewer’s back. I told the butler to let no one else in for the day.

I turned to Miss Lung. “You know that Mrs. Veering asked me to look after the press, to keep them from doing anything sensational. Now you’ve gone and put it in their heads that she intended to commit suicide.”

“
Did
commit suicide.” Miss Lung smiled wisely at me over her necklace of chins.

“How do you know?”

“She was a marvelous athlete … a perfect swimmer. She deliberately drowned.”

“In full view of all of us? Like that? Struggling? Why, I saw her wave for help.”

Miss Lung shrugged. “She may have changed her mind at the last minute … anyway you can’t tell me she would’ve drowned like that if she hadn’t wanted to.”

“Well, as somebody who was a few feet from her when she was still alive I can tell you she was doing her best to remain in this vale of tears.”

“What a happy phrase! Vale of tears indeed!”

“You said it.” I was disgusted. “Did you tell the police you thought she intended to drown on purpose?”

“Why certainly.” Miss Lung was bland. I understood then the promptness of the autopsy. “It was my duty as a citizen and as a friend of poor Mildred to set the record straight.”

“I hope you’re right … I mean, in what you did.”

“I’m sure I am. Didn’t you think that man from the papers
awfully
distinguished-looking? Not at all my idea of the usual sort of newspaperman.…”

A telephone call from Liz broke short this little chat. I took it in the hall.

“Peter?”

“That’s right. Liz?”

“What on earth is going on over there? Are you all right?”

“It didn’t happen to me.”

“Well, you should hear the stories going around. Just what did happen?”

“One of the guests … Mildred Brexton, drowned this morning.”

“Oh, isn’t that awful! And on a week end too.”

I thought this a strange distinction but let it go. “The place is a madhouse.”

“She’s not the painter’s wife, is she?”

When I said she was, Liz whistled inelegantly into the phone, nearly puncturing my eardrum. People like Brexton are the fragile pillars on which the fashion world is built.

“That should make quite a splash.”

I agreed. “Anyway I’m coming to the dance tonight. The others are staying in but I’m to be allowed out.”

“Oh good! I’ll leave an invitation at the door for you. Isn’t it terribly interesting?”