Jealous Woman Read online

  10

  I SPENT HALF THE night lying awake, with that same old creepy feeling coming over me, because there was the phone call and there was the insurance, and you couldn’t laugh them off. Next day the papers were full of the inquest, with “wealthy American baring facts of English husband’s fatal fall,” and I kept waiting for it, whatever it was that was about to pop. And then everything died down, and you’d think there’d never been a guy named Richard Sperry, or a fatal fall, or anything. Jane flew east for the policies, got them, flew back, put her claim in. On the smaller ones she was O.K. and collected. On the big one the suicide clause still had a month to run, and she hadn’t a Chinaman’s chance, at least as it looked then, but I told her to put a claim in anyway. She started her period of residence all over again, and the Count’s education all over again too, with me at the edge of the track looking on, and Jackie getting that gleam in her eye, over what she said was the prettiest show ring entry she’d ever had at the ranch. Delavan was mildly upset at the residence period having to be started all over again, but not as much as we would have expected. The day after the autopsy, or pretty soon anyway, Keyes crossed me up by going home. I had thought he was really going to bear down and try to marry that pile of money. La Sperry, I mean. But he went home and stayed home. It came late fall, and I picked out a Christmas present for Jane, a gold cigarette case I thought she’d like. I had it gift-wrapped and tucked it away in my desk. And then one day she and I were headed for a ride and were going down in the hotel elevator when a bellboy got on with a little fox terrier with a blanket on her underneath the leash harness. Jane no sooner saw her than she gave a yelp and took her in her arms, and come to find out, it was Sperry’s dog and her name was Dolly. But if the dog had ever seen her before she gave no sign of it. All she did was mope, and the boy said she’d been like that since Sperry died. ”If something’s not done, Mrs. Delavan, I don’t think she’s going to be around much longer.”

  “Perhaps I can help.”

  “Gee, if you only would.”

  So we fixed it up she was going to exercise the little thing, and when she got done she’d bring him back to the lobby, and the boy seemed to get it she didn’t want any truck with Mrs. Sperry. But a wink passed, and they fixed it up the exercising would be done on the roof. “That’s one thing I learned from Dick. If you’re in a hotel and you have a dog on your hands, the roof’s closer than the street, and a great deal simpler.”

  The roof was just a jumble of vents, chimneys, and water tank, with a boardwalk promenade for the sun-tanners and badminton nets and shuffle board stuff and patio furniture. We walked Dolly around and how far we got cheering her up was nowhere. After a while we sat down and Jane took the dog in her lap and tried talking to her. And then all of a sudden she said: “What’s she doing here?”

  “Who? Mrs. Sperry?”

  “Yes. I thought she’d left.”

  “Does she have to be doing something?”

  “She doesn’t live here.”

  “Maybe she just likes Nevada.”

  “And what’s he doing here? Tom?”

  “Well, you’re getting a divorce, aren’t you?”

  “I’m getting a divorce. He came out here to get an annulment, and now he’s changed his mind. I’m to file a suit which he’s not going to contest, and there’s no reason whatever, no legal reason I can think of, for him to stay on here.”

  “Maybe he just says he’s changed his mind.”

  “I’m sure he’s not crossing me.”

  “Well, it’s nothing to us.”

  It popped in my mind about the phone call to the bartender, which I had never told her about, because it could have meant her. But now she seemed 100% on the up-and-up and I heard myself open up about it. “Ed, why haven’t you said something about this before?”

  “... I thought it might upset you.”

  “You mean you thought I did have some sort of engagement with Dick?”

  “I mean I was sick of him.”

  “But I hadn’t seen him in three years.”

  “So you told me.”

  “And I was at a picture show.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “But—I still don’t understand it. I’m sure the bartender told Mr. Keyes exactly what you say he did, and that it happened that way, but—it doesn’t sound like her—or anybody. To send a message through a bartender instead of asking for Dick and talking to him. And what he did next, coming to my room, and having that long palaver with Jenkins. He was kind to servants, but awfully short-spoken. That he should have let down his hair the way he did, or she says he did, is almost incredible. It all seems so strange.”

  By that time the dog was so restless she did nothing but moan and twist and wriggle on Jane’s lap. Jane handed her to me, went and got a cord off one of the badminton nets, and tied one end of it to the leash and the other to a table leg. Then she gave the little dog a pat and told her to run around. The dog didn’t wait, or even look at us. She gave a little whimper, raced for the parapet, and jumped. I dived for the cord and missed, but the table leg held it, and in a second I was hauling in a pooch that was scared so bad, and bopped so bad, where she whammed against the wall outside when the cord tightened, that she clean forgot she was supposed to be torching for somebody, and was so glad when I held her to me it was comical. But when I went over to Jane with her all I got was a stare. “Ed, do you know what’s under that spot where she jumped ?”

  I looked, and what I was looking at was the place on the pavement where they picked up Sperry. “Ed, this is directly over that window of mine that Constance Sperry said she saw him jump from. The little lady he had the engagement with is right there in your arms, and he had a standing date with her every night—every night they were together, that is—since he bought her in Venezuela five years ago. She was here, she saw it happen, and that’s why she leaped into what, so far as her little mind could understand, was his grave. Ed, after a phone call to the bartender, made in such way that it must have been intended to implicate me in something she knew was about to happen, and after what we’ve just seen, there’s only one thing to believe. They brought Dolly up, they started walking around, she stopped to admire the view or something. He stopped beside her. Then a quick push, and with that low parapet almost anything would cause him to lose his balance. Then a beeline to her room to take the call from the police she knew would come.”

  “Seems funny they weren’t seen.”

  “Who would see them?”

  “Elevator girl. Anybody.”

  “But you don’t know hotels, perhaps. They don’t like dogs taken up on the roof. Didn’t you see the wink the boy gave me just now, as I slipped him his dollar? And Dick always used the stairway, where they would meet nobody that hour of night. And the phone call, which would mean one thing to Dick and another thing to the bartender, and the place she picked out to do it, would throw suspicion on me if any suspicion arose, because she must have known about those insurance policies. Suicide, though, that was safer. The frame-up against me she didn’t really expect to fall back on unless she absolutely had to.”

  “But what would she kill him for?”

  “Let me think.”

  So she thought. After a long time she said: “Maybe I have it now.”

  “It makes no sense to me.”

  “Dick probably wanted the marriage to go on. Perhaps she didn’t.”

  “How do you figure this out?”

  “The way she acted with Tom. Complimenting him when he told her about that insurance he tried to take out for me. I took that for just a little preliminary soft soap, though the real scheme would be disclosed later. Then when Dick threatened Tom, it all fitted together and I took it for granted the two Sperrys were a team. But if she was up to something Dick didn’t know about, if she’s found somebody she likes better—”

  “Like Keyes?”

  “I think she’s kidding Keyes.”

  “Go on.”

  “If she
was up to something Dick would never have stood for, then Tom’s annulment action was the one perfect break for her. It would be granted, it would almost certainly lead to the Bermuda court rescinding Dick’s divorce, and her marriage would then, of course, be automatically annulled. She’d be out, she’d never have to face anything up with Dick, and best of all, there’d be nothing to decide about property or anything of that sort, and remember she’s the one that has the money. But when Dick scared Tom out of it, that popped everything into the soup. So, do something quick. So, phone call. So, get him above my window. So, bump him.”

  “Keyes thought she was scared to death of the insurance investigators, and what they might find out. He figured she made it suicide, so they’d close the case and go home.”

  “Then he thinks she did it?”

  “... He thinks you did.”

  “I? Are you serious?”

  “He is. And if he is, it is.”

  “But why would I do it?”

  “Insurance. Spite.”

  “Over what?”

  “Sperry marrying her.”

  “Then Mr. Keyes must be crazy.”

  “About darling Constance he is.”

  We went over it some more, and the more we went over it the more it made sense. She kept going back to the swim in Bermuda, when she was sure he meant she wasn’t coming back, and said he was never like that until he met Mrs. Sperry. Then that got her started on Jenkins, and then she said: “But Ed, why was she in on it?”

  “You sure she was?”

  “If it happened up here she was lying.”

  “Keyes thought her story very peculiar.”

  “But why? She didn’t even like Constance Sperry. After I left, she did nothing but write me what a hell on earth it was working for her, and pleading with me to take her back and bring her to the United States. And it wasn’t until I found out her mother had been a waitress on the Aquitania and she was actually born in New York that it was possible to get her in, but those letters, believe me, were pitiful.”

  “When was this?”

  “Last month.”

  “Then she didn’t come to this country with you?”

  “Under the law she couldn’t.”

  When we went down she rang Jenkins and told her to come up. “Wait a minute, Jane. I’m not sure I’d tip what you know until we’ve got this better figured out than we have. I wouldn’t say anything to her. Not now.”

  “Say something to her? I’m going to fire her.”

  “No! You’re forgetting something!”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Your big policy. Your $25,000.”

  “What does she have to do with it?”

  “If he didn’t do it, and you didn’t, you’re due to get paid. And if we can sweat it out of Jenkins who did do it, you better keep her here till we’re ready with the heat, and she’ll be where you want her instead of some place else.”

  “I’ll do no more about the insurance.”

  “What?”

  “I must have an end of this!”

  She had the beat-up look around the eyes, and was already at the writing desk, making out a check for Jenkins’ pay. So she went through on it, the dumbest thing that was done in connection with the whole case. Jenkins stood there, and kept asking if there was something she had done, and couldn’t she have some explanation, or another chance. Jane kept saying she’d decided on another arrangement, and pretty soon Jenkins left. It seemed to me, watching her, that she was talking more to watch Jane than to hang onto her job.

  That night when I got home there was a message to ring Operator 22, or whatever the number was, in Los Angeles. When she put me through it was Keyes. “Ed, the Reno police have that phone call to the bartender.”

  “How do you know?”

  “They rang me.”

  “Why you?”

  “To see what I knew. After all, I’d been with Mrs. Sperry a lot, and I delivered the pen.”

  “And what did you say?”

  “That it was the first I had heard of it.”

  “Then that lets you out.”

  “Ed, I’m warning you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Keep away from that dame.”

  “You coming up here?”

  “I might fly. Over the week-end.”

  “About the taxi driver or Mrs. Sperry?”

  “Oh, the driver recovered.”

  “Drop in. I may have news.”

  11

  SO HE FLEW UP here, just about the time the cops began giving Jane a working over that got worse from day to day. First they’d ask to come over, she’d ask me to stand by, then they’d go over it some more, where she was that night, when was the last time she’d seen Sperry, and they’d spring trap questions on her until a couple of times I had to kick their shins to make them get back over the line. That’s bad with a cop, to act like there’s anything you’re afraid to be questioned about, and to have a boy friend around a woman to tell her how to talk. But with that look in her eyes, I wasn’t sure how much she could take. They’d go, and next day they’d be back, and you could tell they’d been talking to Mrs. Sperry, but what she’d told them you couldn’t tell, because if there’s one thing a cop is good at it’s keeping his own mouth shut and letting you do the talking. All you could say for it was that the papers didn’t have it, so at least it could have been worse.

  But when Keyes arrived, and finally did get around to dropping by the office, I found out what Mrs. Sperry had told them. The point was she was trying, or pretending to try, to cover up for Jane, but since it was her own phone call, she had to put it on the line who it was Sperry was supposed to have the date with. She said Sperry had told her there was a “little old lady,” who “lived upstairs in the hotel somewhere,” and “wanted to ask him some questions about Bermuda,” if he “would drop by at the end of his evening, before he went to bed.” And it seems the cops thought there was something funny about it, all of it, especially the little old lady, and the funny hours she kept, and the funny coincidence they couldn’t find any little old lady. “But she was ready for them, Ed. Do you know what she told them?”

  “Something good, I bet.”

  “That she didn’t believe it either.”

  “Well, say, that is good.”

  “That it seemed so fishy, and that was what made her so depressed. She was certain the story about the little old lady was just an excuse of Sperry’s to get out.”

  “Funny she reminded him though, Keyes.”

  “That was to check on him.”

  “That he was in the bar?”

  “On a drinking deck, not a jumping deck.”

  “Why did she practically beg him to go topside?”

  “To vex him.”

  “Well say, Keyes, that’s very good.”

  “If he got sore enough he’d stay in the bar.”

  “She told all this to the cops?”

  “She’s a thoroughbred, Ed.”

  “Just how do you figure she’s bred so high?”

  “She’s covering scandal.”

  “Sperry’s?”

  “With—whoever.”

  “Oh, say it, I don’t mind.”

  “His former wife, would be my guess.”

  “If so, why did she remind him?”

  “Well, you can hardly blame her, another way you look at it, if she knew he did have a date with Mrs. Delavan, for not wanting a stood-up lady to come roaring down to the bar and letting the whole world in on it. If he had a date he had one, and there was nothing she could do about it. But at least she could make sure that the date was where it was supposed to be and not all over the hotel. She could localize it, as they say in medicine, and pretend she didn’t care.”

  “So she called him?”

  “Ed, she could hardly anticipate that—”

  “Jane would up with his heels and heave him out the window?”

  “Whatever she did.”

  “You ever pushed somebo
dy out of a window?”

  “No.”

  “O.K., try.”

  I stood up in front of the window and kept egging him on to try and push me out. He kept saying I was leaving out the big element that had to be considered, which was surprise, and I kept saying if anybody could get me out, with the sill across my waist, and the sash across my eyes, they were probably a wrestler but not likely a slim, small girl that didn’t weigh but 105 pounds. After a while he got sore, and I piled in: “O.K. then, Keyes. You’ve let a woman take you like Grant took Richmond, but now you get it.”

  I told him about the dog, and all the things Jane and I had figured out, and he had been pink from the winter nip when he came in there, but now he got white, gray, and green. There’s a couch in there in the office where I sometimes have a nap, and he went over and lay down. “You think this is something I just dreamed up? You think—?”

  But he waved his hand for me to shut up and I did. For a long time he lay there, as sick a thing in the way of a man as I ever hope to look at. Once he opened his eyes and said: “Did Mrs. Delavan tell this to the cops? I mean, about the dog?”

  “She answered their questions. They didn’t ask her about any dog and she didn’t tell them. She stuck to what she knew. The dog, if you want to make something of it, that’s in the realm of conjecture.”

  “Then that’s all right.”

  It was along toward sundown of a winter Saturday when he finally stood up and went over to the window and stood staring out at the city. He looked like an old man. “Ed, I’m powerful hard hit.”

  “I’m sorry, Keyes.”

  “It goes together like a clock. Clears it all up.”

  “Not quite all. That maid—”

  “Simple.”

  “Not to me. She didn’t even like Mrs. Sperry. She—”

  “The maid was not in on it.”

  “Even you thought she lied.”

  “Did you ever see the play Macbeth?”

  “In college we played Macbeth. I was Banquo.”

  “Fine, then you’ll understand what I see in this. In Macbeth, a man suspects that another man suspects him. Macbeth has an idea, from something Banquo says, that Banquo thinks there was something peculiar about the murder of Duncan. So what does Macbeth do? Banquo has nothing on him. It’s all in the realm of what Banquo thinks. So to get rid of Banquo he puts himself in the power of three thugs, who he hires to kill Banquo. Bad, Ed. A very bad play. But it brings out the principle involved here. Only a fool would put herself in the power of a Cockney servant girl on something like this, especially when she didn’t need her help, or anybody’s. Therefore we can only conclude she got in the girl’s power by accident.”