asked it casually. She went on eating for so long without answering that he’d begun to wonder if she’d heard him.
“You mean, can I prove he killed her?” she asked then, calmly. “The answer is No, Mr. Finlay. The same as I told the French dick when he was beating about the bush also. She took an overdose of sleeping pills and died. She was in Paris. Nikki was in a hotel near Dijon. He had a lady with him to prove it, also the hotel manager and staff. Being French, the police assumed an affair of gallantry. When Nikki admitted he’d wanted a divorce, they took the rest of it for granted, till her family stepped in. The body was exhumed, and showed nothing. And that was that. Or was it?”
She hesitated an instant, turned her head, looking Tony’s back room over carefully before she turned back and leaned toward him.
“I’ve never told anybody this. It was the damndest thing that ever happened to me. I’m still not over it.”
She glanced around again. The tables near them were empty.
“I was sent out to interview him right after the funeral. There was a rumor that the rake had reformed and was going to seal up the house with himself in it . . . something bizarre. I went out to the faubourg. He let me in and got me a drink. The servants were all busy, he said. We were in her little writing-room. We settled down for a heart to heart chat about life and love and the folly of it all. And I still don’t know what happened.”
She shivered a little and took another drink from her glass.
“He was talking: Could any pure woman ever love him again? How had he ever dreamed of divorcing an angel of light? I was a woman . . . did I think he was a monster?—All that crap, and I was ready with a touching reply of the same, when all of a sudden I heard myself telling him the truth. I was saying I’d always thought he was one of the most scheming, coldest, most utterly ruthless . . . I stopped before I said ‘swine’. . . .”
Polly Randolph closed her eyes, a shudder running through her.
“It was just as if somebody else—or some thing else—was using my tongue, saying things I’d never even thought. I hardly knew the man. It was the atmosphere of the place . . . something. He had all her letters and stuff out, burning things in the fireplace. And just when I stopped, I saw all the dust on the table and I knew I was there alone in the house with him. There weren’t any servants and hadn’t been for days, because I remembered just then I’d noticed the hall was dusty. And he was looking at me looking at the dust, and I . . . I swear I thought he was going to kill me. I was petrified. I tried to get up, but he said ‘Sit down,’ and I sat. Then he started. Why did I say what I’d said? Why scheming? What did I mean, ruthless? Who had I been talking to? It was just like a silk stocking around my neck.”
She shuddered again, her face pale.
“I don’t know how I got out of there. I’ll never forget that trek down the hall with him behind me. I truly never thought I’d make it. I knew he’d killed his wife, and he knew I knew it. I don’t know how I did, but I did. And I knew that was why the servants weren’t there. It was just as if some finger I couldn’t see was writing it in the dust in her room. And if I’d turned up in the Seine with a suicide note in my pocket in the next couple of weeks, it wouldn’t have surprised me. I was sick as a dog when I got home and I had cold sweat all over me when I saw him coming out of the office the other day. And what’s he so interested in the Maloney deal for? Dodo must have told him all about her father. Three martinis and she sounds off on the dirty deal he gave her. I’ve even heard her say poor old Caxey Reeves murdered him.”
“What kind of a dirty deal does she think she got?” Fish asked.
“She never specifies. She just gets a cagey look in her eye and says she’s got everything she needs to break the Trust. Maybe Nikki’s trying to help her. I suppose if Mr. Reeves murdered the old man you could establish undue influence, or something?”
Caxson Reeves had listened to that without a ripple of expression, waiting impassively for Fish to go on.
Polly Randolph shrugged her shoulders. “All I know is you won’t catch me in Newport this summer. I’ve asked for Washington, heat or no heat. And you know, of course, I’m an overwhelming minority of one. Except for the first wife’s family, and they won’t talk. I tried to corner one of them in Madrid on my way back and he’d never heard of anyone named de Gradoff. Everybody else including Dodo thinks he’s divine and that the family took him to the cleaners when he was helpless in the throes of chivalrous remorse.” She shrugged again. “But I know if I were the Maloney trustees and I got even a whiff of that romance curdling, I’d see Dodo didn’t have any sleeping pills within reach.”
“Dodo does not take sleeping pills,” Caxson Reeves said evenly.
“I’m just telling you what Polly Randolph said,” Fish replied. “I still think an investigator could sound out the first wife’s family.”
“Who’d be happy to convict themselves as accessories after the fact for the benefit of the Maloney estate, no doubt.” Reeves looked at him over his spectacles. “It is not my business as Trust Officer of this bank to accuse a client’s husband of murder, Finlay. Dodo is trying to break the Trust. Just how long do you think it would take her to find out the Maloney Trust was paying someone to pry into de Gradoff’s past, and to bring suit for damages? You’re concerned with her safety and with Jennifer Linton’s. I’m concerned with the Maloney Trust and the reputation of the bank. I—”
“You told me.” Fish pushed his chair back to absorb the sudden resurgence of angry resentment. “As long as the bank and the Maloney dough are safe, that’s all that matters. I guess that’s the point of your ‘Invitation to Murder’ gag. You said it wasn’t the Maloney Trust that was about, it was the reversion of the Trust in case both Dodo and Jennifer die. So de Gradoff, the hatchet man, can do somebody a big favor, can’t he. While the bank sits tight and refuses to interfere.”
He got up. “Sorry. I don’t look at things that way. I’ve quit, sir. Unless you’ve already fired me. The bank’s reputation and the Maloney money will be safer in other hands.”
“That’s hardly the way to help Jennifer Linton, is it?”
Reeves spoke on a dead dry level without raising his eyes.
“Don’t be an ass, Finlay. I didn’t get up and walk out when you suggested I may have murdered my oldest and closest friend.”
“I was speaking for Polly Randolph and Dodo Maloney, not myself.”
“I was speaking for the bank,” Reeves said quietly. “Now, if you’ll just sit down, I’ll speak for myself. It’s obvious something must be done.”
Fish sat. Reeves reached for his briefcase.
“I’ve had this for several weeks.” He took out a blue airmail letter. “I don’t know what its significance is, if any, but it disturbs me. It’s a reply to my letter saying the Maloney Trust has no funds to pay de Gradoff’s debts and referring the undisclosed principal to the Countess de Gradoff.” He read the letter carefully before he put it back in the envelope. “The principal is still undisclosed. But he has withdrawn his inquiry. He trusts we will forget that any inquiry was made, and explicitly requests that no mention of the matter be made to any third party . . . particularly the countess.”
“Meaning what?” Fish asked.
“I don’t know. There’s no inference the debt has been paid, or
