Death and Letters Read online

  “Tell her I think she’s admirable.”

  “Oh—you mean because she didn’t give Susie away about Venner?”

  “She had some provocation.”

  “Oh, Zel would never do that.”

  “I have the highest opinion of her.”

  “I’ll tell her. You might like to know that she and the youngest doctor in her outfit are getting along quite well lately.”

  Gamadge was pleased. “I’m glad to hear it. I was rather afraid young Mr. Waterton would come around again.”

  “Afraid? That’s good.” Sam laughed aloud.

  “I know he’s very nice, but he’s really too thick in the head.”

  “He did come around, and Zel was very sympathetic with him. But somehow that last night—well, I won’t annoy you any more.” Sam finished his drink and they shook hands. “Just quietly remember me to Mrs. Glendon Coldfield if you see her.”

  “She’ll like to hear from you.”

  “That’s the worst thing Susie ever did.”

  “Only there’s no evidence.”

  “She could have read up on her subject in Gramp’s office.”

  “Let it go.”

  “Anything you say.”

  Sam went back to his party. A small man came in with a commuter’s rush; he was carrying a brief case, and as he stopped and glanced about him he took a square, bluish envelope out of an inside pocket and held it tight in predatory fingers. Gamadge couldn’t bear to look at it.

  Want more Henry Gamadge? Read the first two chapters of the next—and last—mystery in the series, The Book of the Crime

  CHAPTER ONEDog Walkers

  AGIRL AND A DOG came down the steep brownstone steps; the dog in short, frog-like leaps (he was a Boston terrier, large for his breed), the girl holding on to his leash with one hand, to her cap-like hat with the other. It was a dark, cold April day, six o’clock in the afternoon, and she pulled her fur coat around her when they reached the sidewalk.

  She would have turned left to Madison, but the dog preferred the long stretch to Fifth—the Austen house was near the Madison Avenue corner. She followed, indifferent. Rena Austen did not care for the dog Aby, he was the only dog in her life that she had never liked: his brindled coat always felt hot and damp to the hand, his hindquarters hung loose on him and waggled disagreeably at a gesture or a word. He was a sycophant and a coward. But she realized that she ought to feel grateful to Aby, since he was her excuse for getting out of the house and away from human company at this depressing hour. By human company she meant that of the Austens; she seldom saw anybody else.

  That narrow house! Squeezed between two others like it, with only a sliver of front showing, but so much of it extending back and back to the limits of the lot. Just a sliver of yard beside the kitchen, and Aby wasn’t allowed there. The cook would soon have him out of it with a broom.

  Dark narrow rooms, dark stairs, dark corners. A perfect trap to her eyes, but plenty of space for a family of four, and too much, she would have thought, for the old gentleman who had lived there and had willed it to Gray Austen, her husband. But the old gentleman had had a family once, she supposed. Now she and Gray had the second-floor back suite; Gray’s brother and sister, Jerome and Hildreth, had the third floor; the servants were above. Just right for comfort.

  What was wrong with them?

  Aby, as usual, kept her waiting on the Fifth Avenue corner in the chill wind, while she looked at the letter box and thought that she had nobody to write to. The only friend she had had in New York, the only one to whom she could possibly write an intimate letter, was married and abroad. And even if there was anybody to write to, what could she say? It would sound well, the kind of thing she had in mind! It would be a nice thing to tell anyone. “My husband was an airman, he will always be lame from a war wound, he walks with a brace. I met him on a bench in Central Park, while I still had that good job you got me; I fell in love with him, and we were married in a month. That was about a year ago. He had plenty of money, because his uncle left him an income for life, and an old house here; he and his brother and sister came on from Oregon to live here, after the war. I have everything, and I had nothing and nobody. I wasn’t a child, I was nineteen years old—it was a love match.

  “And in three weeks—three weeks!—I decided that we had both made a fearful mistake.”

  Aby consented to be dragged away from the lamppost, and trotted ahead of her along the avenue, snuffling.

  Seven weeks, thought Rena. People didn’t behave like that—fall in and out of love in seven weeks. Gray said they didn’t, and denied it so far as he was concerned—absolutely denied it. He wouldn’t let her even mention it. But he had made the mistake too, whatever he said; she must have been as deceptive unconsciously as he had been—that melancholy, beautiful young man with his braced leg; his dark eyes had looked so kind. But he was far from kind, and his moods were so black that sometimes she felt afraid of him.

  It was vulgar to tire of a marriage in a year. What could anybody think, but that she had married for what she could get out of it, the alimony? And a lame man, a war hero too. It was out of the question.

  The registrar had been so nice; it had really been very solemn. Rena had meant never to leave Gray Austen, and perhaps “for better, for worse” meant that people must get over their whims and stand by their bargain, and not try to get out of it on the excuse that they hadn’t understood what they were letting themselves in for. Rena’s whim had lasted a year. “Oh, if it were not for Aby,” she thought, as they turned east at the corner, “I needn’t go back into that house again. But I could shove him inside when Norah opened the door, and just turn around and go.”

  Go where? Live on what, until she got another job—if she ever did? “I know Gray would never let me have a divorce, and what respectable person would help me to get one?”

  Was it their idleness that made the Austen family so tiresome? None of them did anything. Jerome and Hildreth lived on Gray, Gray lived on his income. There was an excuse for him, and he’d gone into the war so young that he’d never had any other kind of work at all. But Jerome had been an accountant in Portland, Hildreth had had a position outside Portland as a librarian. Hildreth, the eldest of them, wasn’t more than forty; but not one of them seemed to have the slightest intention of doing anything again for the rest of their lives. Hildreth pretended to run the house, but they had inherited all of old Mr. Austen’s servants, and they ran the house—Hildreth didn’t spend an hour a day on it. Jerome lolled about, ate and drank, amused himself.

  The others of course could fill up their time as Gray couldn’t—they got around, picked up friends, went to plays and concerts and exhibitions, travelled; flitted back and forth between New York and Portland to settle the family affairs. They’d just come home from that last trip. But Gray—wouldn’t any other normal human being find himself something to do? He didn’t suffer at all, he was an intelligent, well-read man. Well, that brought it all back to the original trouble and question—Gray’s case. He was simply one of those cases, she supposed, and his problem wasn’t that he couldn’t dance or play golf or tennis, lead an active life; it came from the effects of the war itself on him, and his recovery would be difficult and slow. She was there presumably to help him; and all she could think of was getting away.

  At first she had wondered whether his first wife’s death had been what he couldn’t recover from; but after he told her about it, before they were married and indeed almost as soon as they began to talk at all intimately, he had not referred to it again. Nobody talked about the first wife, and why should they, to her? A sad subject—Gray had married her here, very soon after he got his discharge and came to New York early in 1946. They were married two years, and then she had died of virulent pneumonia, there in the Austen house. Gray had stood his loneliness for a year, and then he had met Rena in the park.

  Two years! The first Mrs. Gray Austen had lasted two years, and the second Mrs. Austen didn’t look like las
ting for more than one. Had the other girl been so worn down by boredom and hopelessness and strain that she couldn’t put up any resistance to the disease? Such a nice little thing she had sounded like, a hostess in a restaurant: Gray couldn’t exactly be accused of fortune-hunting! Pretty, with Rena’s light colouring, and as isolated in the world as Rena was.

  The wretched Aby tried to stop at the Madison Avenue corner, but Rena wouldn’t let him; mean of her, she thought, but he was such a dawdler. A big dog on a short leash was coming along the street, paying no attention to them, but Aby got behind her. “He can’t help it,” she thought, feeling angry because the man with the other dog laughed at Aby and at her. The big dog ignored the whole thing. Traffic streamed or jolted past them, cabs and buses taking people home. Huge trucks ground by, horns blew. Not many pedestrians, though, at this hour with the stores closed. Just dog walkers, in hot weather or cold, rain or shine.

  She had followed the old track again, the course of the sign that stood for infinity; around first one loop and then the other, back to where the lines crossed: the walk with Aby always just got her back to where the lines crossed. Here they were near the last corner, and then there would be the big apartment house to pass, and a house, and then the Austen house. Would they all be in the library waiting for cocktails as usual? Or would they be down in the front basement, knocking balls around on the old pool table—mixing the cocktails themselves at the bar? The liquor was all down there, and so Gray was down there often. Not that he exactly drank, Rena protested to herself; at least he carried it all right, but it seemed to make people short-tempered instead of gay. In the long run, of course.

  She and Aby were passing the service alley of the apartment house now, and Aby was always interested in garbage cans. She let him stop a minute to fuss and sniff there in his unattractive fervent way, with her eye out for superintendents and porters; but they never seemed to be around at that hour. Suddenly he glanced over his shoulder, started violently, and disappeared behind one of the cans; Rena almost lost her grip on his leash. A voice said: “I just wanted to apologize.”

  She looked around and up; the big dog’s owner was big too, big and tall, with a tweed overcoat hanging open and a soft hat in his hand. The wolfhound’s leash was wrapped around the other hand, and his collar gripped firmly in gloved fingers.

  “Gawain wouldn’t hurt a fly,” said the hound’s owner.

  “I notice you have him pretty tight,” said Rena, responding to the man’s smile with one of her own.

  “Well, he might nose up a little. Leave your pup where he is a minute, if he likes it there; I wanted to explain—I didn’t laugh to be rude or anything.”

  “I know Aby’s funny, but he can’t help it.”

  The big man was youngish, and his face had a skin-grafting job all the way down his left cheek. He had tawny hair; he looked at her from lively blue eyes, half-closed.

  “That’s his name, is it? I know him from before the war,” said the big man. “What I wanted to explain. He’s getting on, poor old guy. Many a time I used to meet old Mr. Austen walking him, when I was walking the pup we had then—police dog it was. Old Mr. Austen and I had many a good laugh over this Aby. So today I—didn’t mean to be rude.”

  “Perfectly all right,” said Rena. “I suppose I’m a little touchy about him.”

  “Don’t blame you. The best dog we ever had—best pedigree, I mean—he wasn’t quite right in the head. Bull terrier, and up in the country he used to come home otherwise all right, but with the tip of his tail pretty nearly bit off.”

  Rena hadn’t heard herself laugh for so long that she startled herself now.

  “My name’s Ordway,” said the young man. He jerked his head backwards: “We live across the street there. Always lived there, since this region was built up—I mean the family has. Austens too. I understand there are Austens there again.”

  “Yes, I’m Mrs. Austen.”

  “Oh. Yes.” He glanced at her briefly. “He caught it worse than some of us. I’ve seen him out walking the pup. I suppose that’s your husband.”

  “Yes, Gray.”

  “Well…” Conversation halted. Then the young man said politely: “Got to be getting on with this brute, he needs more of a stroll than yours does.”

  The wolfhound had stood all this time like a statue, his chin up and his eyes fixed on nothing. Rena said: “He’s beautiful.”

  “Yes, nice feller.”

  Mr. Ordway smiled at her again, replaced his hat, and went off up the block. Rena unwound Aby from the garbage can, and followed at a distance.

  As she and Aby climbed the front steps of the house, she hoped the Austens were down in the basement; if they were in the library Aby would rush in, and somebody—Jerome or Hildreth—would call to her. That was routine. They didn’t like her, she was sure they thought Gray a fool to have married her, but they put up a show. Gray said it was her imagination. Even the servants ignored her as much as they could. And how they adored Gray, all of them! Rena had a good idea of the kind of thing they said in the kitchen: What a little nobody of a gold digger, to catch Mr. Gray, God love him.

  The front door opened finally to her ring—Norah would have been in the basement getting the cocktail tray ready. The wrinkled Norah admitted her glumly; Aby dashed past for the library. Jerome’s voice called to her in his patronizing way: “Hello there, Chick, come on back.”

  If she didn’t, somebody would come upstairs after her. She left her coat and hat on the hall bench and went along the passage past the drawing-room on the right, past the basement stairs on the left, through the little dark square ante-room with its book-cases surmounted by busts of Roman worthies, into the big library.

  It was always in a half-light, since one of its high windows was blocked by the house next door and one was inset with medallions of German stained glass. The open dining-room doors beyond sent in most of the light there was. Now in the dusk, with no lamps on and a low fire in the chimney-place, it was like a cave. She could hardly make out the three figures sitting around the hearth.

  Hildreth’s affected voice said: “Turn on a lamp, will you, pet? And join us. Almost time for cocktails.”

  CHAPTER TWOTwo Ways Out

  NOBODY MOVED as Rena came and stood beside Gray’s chair. He was lounging far back in it as usual, his braced leg out in front of him, cigarettes on the little table that would hold his cocktail and his canapé, a book in his hands. He looked very morose, and didn’t lift his face to look up at her. His dark eyes were fixed on the fire.

  Jerome sat in the middle chair, with Aby slavering at his feet: Aby knew that bits of toast and perhaps bacon would soon be coming his way. A hateful, conceited fellow Rena thought Jerome was; tall, dark, heavy and getting heavier, with thick jowls and a slightly overhanging upper lip. He had none of Gray’s beauty or charm, but he had personality, no doubt of it. Hildreth was lighter than the others: rust-coloured hair and eyes, a sallow, freckled skin, shallow jaws, an ungainly figure; her feet were clumsy, yet she always crossed her knees and had one foot out as if to be admired.

  Jerome and Hildreth were talking about their trip home to settle up a deceased aunt’s estate. Rena, looking down at her husband, wondered how in spite of his sullen moods she had ever fallen out of love with him. His narrow, pale face was so appealing, clear and regularly featured as a statue’s; his eyes so beautifully set, his mouth so firm, his hair so smooth and fine. What was he reading? Her book—one of the few she owned. She kept it up in their sitting-room, and she didn’t remember that he had ever noticed it.

  She remembered very well how she had come to buy it. She thought of the day in the publisher’s office where she worked, the day she had been sent into the editor-in-chief’s room with a manuscript. The author was there, and several other people, and as she came towards the door she heard them all laughing. When she went in she saw that they were laughing at something the author had been saying; he was leaning up against the window ledge with his hands in h
is pockets, a colourless-looking man except for greenish eyes. If she could have expressed the impression he made on her, she would have said that he was entirely without self-consciousness or arrogance, but quite sure of himself; and that he was kind, but got a lot of amusement out of his fellow-creatures.

  His manuscript was entitled: Murderers Speak.

  “Thank you, Miss Seton,” said the editor from behind his desk.

  The author had thought it was “Seaton.” He said: “My God, Miss Seaton, I hope you have no aunt?”

  Somebody asked: “Now what? Why shouldn’t she?” But she had answered him seriously: “It isn’t spelt that way.”

  Then they had both begun to laugh, and he had said: “Miss Seton, I am your friend for life. Shall we send these people to night school?”

  “I just happened—”

  “I happen to read Walter de la Mare too. You tell me if an aunt or anybody else bothers you.”

  She had hurried out, smiling: and of course she had asked about him in the office, and they had told her a good deal. She had bought his book when it came out, and had enjoyed it very much. Gray never read such things, though; he never read all the interesting crime books up in their sitting-room. The bookshelves were crammed with them, trials and novels, old and new.

  Hildreth was saying: “…and really, Gray, there’s something to be said for a stiff knee. If it doesn’t hurt, I mean.”

  “Think so?” Gray’s eyes turned towards her, the whites showing.

  “Alibis you out of anything.”

  “That’s so,” agreed Jerome. “You don’t have to travel across a continent to collect seven hundred and fifty dollars and crate up a houseful of stuff that nobody wants. But you’ll be paying part of the storage on it, my boy.”

  “Seven hundred and fifty all she had?” asked Gray without interest.

  “I told you; she lived on the interest out of a trust fund, and the principal now goes to village improvements. I don’t know how she ever saved the seven fifty, hanged if I do.”