two young people were much too calm, much too easy. He’d seen that kind of calmness and ease before. Usually, in witnesses just before they collapsed on the stand. Here were two charming youngsters who must have been devoted to old Mr. Rodney Fairfaxx, who had seen him arrested for murder and carted off to jail, and they were being calm and easy about it.
Perhaps, he told himself, that was what came of being brought up on the right side of Chicago Avenue. Malone himself had been raised south of Twelfth Street, back of the stockyards. He instinctively expected people to swear, cry, or get drunk and beat up a policeman when a beloved relative was dragged off to jail.
He had an uncomfortable suspicion that as soon as the house was empty of visitors Kenneth Fairfaxx was going to swear and Elizabeth Fairfaxx was going to cry. And a good thing for the both of them, too.
As for getting drunk and beating up a policeman, he’d attend to that himself. Preferably, the policeman involved would be von Flanagan.
“What would you say to tea?” Elizabeth Fairfaxx asked, “or a drink?”
“To the first,” Malone told her, “I’d say ‘Heaven forbid!’ To the second, ‘Heaven be praised!’”
She laughed easily and pleasantly and mixed him a drink that was considerably more bourbon than soda. “I hope this isn’t too strong.”
“Personally,” Malone said reassuringly, “I always put the soda in with an eye-dropper.”
She smiled again and said, “I’ll take you around.” Then she paused, her hand on his arm. “Mr. Malone, I hope you don’t think I—I mean, there’s no point in going to pieces just because someone—Uncle Rodney—” She paused once more, swallowed hard, and said, “It seems much more practical to be up and doing, and have all your wits about you.”
“Much more practical,” Malone said, resisting an impulse to pat her hand. If she’d been only a few years younger he’d have had to resist an impulse to take her out and buy her an ice-cream cone.
He liked Elizabeth Fairfaxx, liked everything about her; her long-legged, graceful walk, her loosely combed tawny hair, the scattering of freckles on her well-shaped nose, and the fact that she could carry off a situation like this one with such magnificent aplomb. On a witness stand, she’d be a sensation. He hoped she’d never be on one. Most of all, he hoped she hadn’t murdered three inoffensive and insignificant postmen.
It was definitely a relief to sit down beside Helene after his tour of the room.
She put down her drink and said accusingly, “You haven’t answered my question. Why did you let them take nice old Mr. Fairfaxx off to jail?”
“I had my reasons,” Malone whispered ominously. “Now answer one for me. What the hell are you doing here?”
Helene glared at him, a dangerous light in her blue eyes. “Where else do you think I’d be at a time like this? I’ve known the Fairfaxx family all my life.” She added indignantly, “Old Rodney Fairfaxx was my mother’s godfather. Elizabeth went to school with me. She was captain of the hockey team and president of the Junior class. I’ve still got a scar where she nicked me accidentally in a practice game.”
“That makes you practically cousins,” Malone said. “Yes, at least that. She’s a nice girl and I admire her. Do you think she murdered those three postmen?”
“Damn you, Malone!”
“I was only asking,” the little lawyer said mildly. “After all, somebody murdered them. I don’t really think Mr. Rodney Fairfaxx did, and von Flanagan doesn’t really think so, either, and I know you don’t.”
“She could have,” Helene whispered, looking at Elizabeth Fairfaxx, “but she didn’t. She—”
“Shut up,” Malone said. “You talk too much. Just answer a few questions for me. When Elizabeth Fairfaxx dragged me around the room, meeting people, I got a lot of names, but not any details.”
He glanced around the pleasant room, and noticed that Violet was standing near the tea table, like a slightly disapproving spectre, her thin, pale hands folded in front of her, her shadowy eyes watching Elizabeth Fairfaxx. Her hands, Malone suddenly realized, were graceful and beautiful. They looked strong, too. Again he was puzzled by the feeling that he’d seen her before. Nonsense? Since she’d been the Fairfaxx housekeeper for years and years, as Elizabeth had said, is was impossible that he could have seen her before. He put her out of his mind and began looking around at a few of the others.
Elizabeth Fairfaxx was offering a cup of tea to Mrs. Abby Lacy. A cup of tea, a cigarette, a well-bred smile. Mrs. Lacy accepted all three, without a change of expression.
She was a short, spare woman, with a Persian lamb coat and an expensive hat. Meticulous and determined, Malone decided. If the house next door to her burned down, she would be the first to call the fire department and start carrying out rugs and draperies. But if she’d never met the householders socially, she’d be careful to wear a hat and carry gloves while she dragged them out of their inferno.
She had a tight little mouth, shut like a mousetrap, with the mouse inside it, and cold, squinty, weasel-gray eyes.
“She’s very rich,” Helene volunteered. “They’re the railroad Lacys. She’s been a widow for years. And her daughter is devoted to her.”
“That’s nice,” Malone said. “Nice for Mrs. Lacy, I mean.” He tried to imagine being devoted to Mrs. Abby Lacy, gave up and turned his attention to the daughter in question.
“Her name is Gay,” Helene reminded him. “Gay Lacy. Her father had a very romantic nature. All the Lacys did.”
Malone looked thoughtfully at the girl whose name sounded like an 1890 musical comedy star and tried unsuccessfully to imagine her having a romantic nature. Unlike her mother, she was tall, so that sitting beside the older woman she appeared even more gawky than she actually was; and where her mother’s hair was a dull, rather muddy gray, Gay’s was a dull and rather muddy brown. Otherwise they looked very much alike, especially as far as the look of grim determination was concerned.
“They live next door,” Helene added. “They share a garden and the wall. Rodney Fairfaxx and Mr. Lacy were very close friends. That’s why they built their houses this way. Albert Lacy was a sweet person. I was just a kid when he died, but I remember how much I liked him. He used to take me to theaters. Real theaters, not kid stuff.”
Malone relit his cigar and asked, casually, “What did he die of, or do you know?”
“I don’t know,” Helene said. There was an almost acid note in her voice. “I suspect he was just tired to death.”
Malone glanced again at Mrs. Lacy and decided the diagnosis was quite probably correct.
“And I’m sure,” Helene said in a smugly catty voice, “that Gay and Kenneth are going to be very happy together.”
Malone remembered with a start that Elizabeth had explained the homely angular young woman as “Miss Lacy—Kenneth’s fiancée.” The little lawyer sighed. There wasn’t anything so very special about Kenneth, but it seemed like a darn shame anyway.
“And you met Uncle Ernie, of course,” Helene went on. “Ernest Fairfaxx, I mean. Everyone has always called
