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PETER CARLYLE COOKE

After I’d telephoned to Mr. Bartel I returned to the dining room of the Valley Club and resumed my seat opposite Mr. Nichols. He presented, with multiple contusions and hemorrhages of the eye, an extraordinary spectacle. The eye was blue. Not the same color or shade of blue as Mr. Nichols’ cornea, but a deeper blue. Not black, as people say, but blue. Really, they should say, to be accurate, “Where did you get that blue eye of yours?” and not black. Or possibly purple. Or sometimes brown.

Mr. Nichols said, “What are you staring at?”

“That was Mr. Bartel I just phoned,” I said. “As I was afraid, Albert will be a little late with the lunch baskets.”

“I didn’t ask you who you phoned,” said Mr. Nichols. He had finished his soup, and now put down his spoon and started to wad up bread crumbs into nasty gray little spitballs, another of his disgusting, or perhaps I should say, annoying habits, though mannerisms would perhaps be the better word. “And,” he added, “I really don’t care whether Albert never delivers the lunches. That aggregation of fakers and stuffed shirts we have this season—let them starve. I never saw a drearier collection, never in all my life.”

“Many of them, Walter, received expressly and precisely your strongest, perhaps I should say your most urgent approval.” I peered at Mr. Nichols, who never failed to surprise me, in some alarm. He seemed to be on the verge of a serious seizure. “Besides,” I said, “there are several sides to every question, but in the main, I think perhaps on this occasion, at this particular time, we may have views somewhat in common.”

Walter Nichols waited until the waiter had removed the soup, and then said, explosively, “For Christ’s sake, Cooke, what are you talking about? Can’t you use plain language? I didn’t tell you to meet me here at the Valley Club just because I can’t stand the lunches at the Hall. Nor because I love your company. There was a reason why I wanted to see you, and you aren’t going to evade the issue by laying down a verbal smokescreen.”

How right the Demarests were, when they proclaimed, or perhaps I should say exemplified, not only by word but by deed, that nothing counts in this world so much as a sympathetic spirit and a helping hand. And yet, how strange that they should have become preoccupied with the troublesome spirit of the creative artist, to the exclusion of equally needful, though perhaps less worthy, but more deserving, types of mankind. I said, “I know your eye must hurt, Walter.” The waiter brought our lunches. I’d ordered a sirloin steak, despite the hot weather. A very light breakfast, then a substantial lunch, followed in turn by a frugal dinner, and then a substantial snack at eleven o’clock, was doing wonders for my excess weight. “And I’m sure I know how you must feel about Mr. Bartel.”

“As it happens,” he said, positively leering, “I like Mr. Bartel.”

“Exactly. I was sure you did.”

Walter Nichols appeared to withdraw into the vast reserve of a spirit that has known much trouble, but that has never been at a loss, and has never been found wanting in meeting it. He finished his chicken à la king without speaking. Then he said, casually,

“May I have your attention for a few minutes, Mr. Cooke?” I said, “Certainly,” but he seemed not to hear. “Without interruption?” he added, emphatically. “And it’s no use trying to act like a pixelated moonbeam with me, you old goldbricker. I know you’re as sane as I am, probably saner, even if you did put in four years at Rockland State Hospital for the mentally deficient.”

I looked around. Fortunately, no one was within earshot. I said, “Mr. Nichols, Walter I mean, no one realizes more than I do what a truly wonderful, wonderful helping hand you extended to me in an hour when I was sorely persecuted and misunderstood. Until the final vindication. But at the same time, don’t you think it might be equally beneficial, if not more so, to use the better part of audacity? Valor, perhaps I should say. In short, to be discreet in public?”

Walter Nichols sighed, lit a cigarette, exhaled smoke.

“You’ve got brains, you old goat,” he said, “no matter how hard you try to conceal the fact.”

“The pleasure is all mine, Walter.”

“But this is getting us nowhere. I asked you to lunch with me here so that we could be alone, and talk. I’m planning to commit a murder, and I shall need your help.”

“You’ll find me a most sympathetic spirit, Walter.” The steak was just a little too well done, but good. “Anything in reason will find me willing and anxious to extend you all the help at my command. What was it you had been planning?”

“Murder.”

“Yes, I thought I’d heard you correctly. But it’s against the law, Walter, and I’m sorry, but under the circumstances, I see no reason why I should commit myself to a course of action that can end only in disaster, illegal disaster. I’m truly sorry. Will you have strawberry shortcake, or ice cream for dessert?”

“It won’t be a disaster if you’re in on it.”

“I’m sorry, Walter, but I’m afraid you’re overwrought. I won’t be, as you put it, in on it.”

“Oh, yes, you will be. Yes, because you’ve got to be, whether you like it or not.” I looked at him. He seemed perfectly, one might almost say uncomfortably, sure of himself. “You see, Mr. Cooke, I know some things about you that you think I don’t. Things you think no one, aside from yourself, knows about. Do you follow me?”

“Perfectly. But I don’t believe you.”

“You will believe me.”

“Naturally. Of course. But I don’t think so.”

Mr. Nichols sighed, profoundly, and the waiter approached to remove our plates. Walter ordered the ice cream, and I decided to select the choice of strawberry shortcake. When the waiter had gone, Walter said,

“Just accept the fact that you will have to go along with me in this proposition, whether you like it or not. Will you assume that?”

“Certainly. But of course, I won’t.”

“I understand you, Peter. I know you better than you know yourself. And, I assure you, I’m not talking through my hat. I can oblige you to help me carry out my plans, whether you want to or not. Now, pending my proving to you that you have no choice in the matter—and I shall give you this proof—are you at any rate willing to discuss the subject of this murder I’m projecting?”

The waiter brought the dessert. The strawberry shortcake seemed a trifle on the frugal side. But then, the Valley Club, like every dining room and restaurant in Endor, could be very disappointing indeed on occasion.

“It’s not only illegal,” I said, “but dangerous. To society as a whole. Suppose every man took the law into his own hands, and decided to redress the supposed wrongs he fancies have been done to him? I will not participate, Walter, in your hare-brained though perhaps idealistic schemes.”

He eyed me with what I could not help feeling was an expression of malevolence.

“But you’ll talk it over with me?” he said.

“Oh, yes. Talk. Why not?” There was not enough sugar in the shortcake. Under the circumstances, perhaps it might be best to seem to humor him, and even to be willing to lend a helping hand and a sympathetic spirit. “Not in the best of taste, perhaps. Still, people do discuss murder. In fact, many of our guests at the Hall make a good living by writing about it. As a matter of fact, Walter, did you have so many of this season’s guests selected from the criminal elements, simply to cover this proposed step of yours?”

“Certainly.”

“Extraordinarily clever, Walter,” I said. “I surmised as much. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be getting back to the Hall. I’m not at all sure about Albert.”

Mr. Nichols smiled tolerantly. But when that great red face of his really smiled, somehow it was a most unpleasant, not to say disturbing, sight to see.

“When we’ve talked,” he said. “Relax and sit back. Regard this as something in the realm of fiction. Now, what would be the best method of committing a murder at the Hall, and to escape detection?”

I ate the last of my shortcake and sipped my iced coffee.

“Naturally, Mr. Nichols, I wouldn’t know,” I said. “But a knife, suddenly applied when the killer and the person to be killed are remote from public observation, has always been partially successful.”

“Just what I thought,” said Mr. Nichols.

“But, naturally, circumstances alter the case. In this hypothetical situation you are designing, and in which I refuse to have any part, pending proof that I should or must have, exactly whom were you disposed to kill?”

“My wife, of course,” said Nichols.

“Oh, surely not. That lovely creature?”

“Lovely to you,” said Mr. Nichols. “But a cancerous excrescence to me. Now, how about it? What would be the best way for us to get rid of her?”

It was my turn to sigh. I was used to having trouble with the guests of the Hall, and from time to time, with the trustees. But this was just a little beyond the outermost limit of trouble ever, previously, experienced by me. I wadded up my napkin and laid it down and said, stubbornly, “Walter, I wish I could make it clear to you that if anyone is going to do away with your wife it won’t be us, it will have to be you. Because I refuse to have any connection with this scatterbrained and, well, radical plan of yours. May I point out, first, that I disapprove of murder, and secondly I disapprove of the victim you have selected—”

“So do I,” he said, and grinned in that sarcastic way of his. “That’s why I selected her.”

“Beside all that,” I pointed out, “You’re a brilliant man, Walter. You’re a man with a future. And now, stupidly you want to jeopardize it.” I saw by his smile, which had simply grown wider and more sardonic, that my argument was having less than no effect. It seemed to me a different tack, all things considered, might be better. “Still,” I said, “if you simply have to do it, I suppose the best way would be to get her to come alone and secretly to the balcony of the Hall some night, on the pretext of making a reconciliation, or some such nonsense, and then dispose of her. Always, of course, provided you are unobserved by the other guests. But our guests being what they are, and confound it, Walter, you are responsible in large part for their being what they are, I wouldn’t put it past them to choose that very night to have a bridge party on the balcony of the Hall. So I wouldn’t do it. In fact, I won’t.” I stood up. “I’m going back to the Hall, and I sincerely, indeed I devoutly, hope you give up this rash plan. Heaven knows, Walter, you have reasons enough for wishing Lucille were no longer part of your life. But you have not as yet hit upon a rational, I might even say a probable, or possible, method of getting her out of it. When you do,” I said, perhaps a trifle carried away, “let me know.”

Walter Nichols stood up, too.

“I certainly will,” he said. “But I think, all things considered, I can’t do without you. Driving back to the Hall?”

“Yes.” We left together. Frankly, I could not imagine why Mr. Walter Nichols was so anxious to return with me to the Hall. However, we left the premises of the Valley Club, went out to our cars, got in them, and drove back to the Hall. We drove into the interior courtyard and got out at the main entrance. I said, “Well, I’ll have to check the day’s accounts.”

“Yes,” said Walter Nichols, “But first, I want you to accompany me on a trip downstairs.”

“Downstairs?”

“Yes. To the crypt beneath the old wine cellar. You have no objection, have you?”

I stared. It was a moment before I gave any reply. “Of course not. But couldn’t we postpone it to some other time?”

“No,” said Nichols. “I found something very interesting down there. I think you’ll be interested, too. What’s the matter, P. C.? You don’t look particularly happy.”

“Why on earth should I be particularly happy?”

“Well, stop mopping the perspiration off your face.” I hadn’t been aware that I was doing so. “I think you know what I found down there, and you’d might as well face it.”

“No,” I said. I’d already undergone far too severe a strain. “Not at this time. I really, if you’ll excuse me, have a great deal to attend to this afternoon.” But he had already turned into the Hall, and I found myself talking to the back of his head as we made our way through the lounge, chapel and library toward the back of the building. An alcove seldom in use, except as a storeroom for tools used in winter time, gave entrance upon a flight of stairs leading down to the laundry and boiler-room. The large and furniture-laden vaults that had once been the wine cellar of the Hall were another flight of stairs beneath them, and beneath the cellar there was an empty crypt once used for storing ice. I followed Walter Nichols through this cool, underground maze, all of it dimly lit by electric lights that he switched on as he went along. I said, “I hope this won’t take long.”

“It won’t,” he said, turning to the narrow stairway leading to the crypt, and lighting the bulb that illuminated its length from the doorway at the bottom. “Cooke,” he said, “you had a brother-in-law, didn’t you, by the name of Fremont Bryan?”

“Yes, I believe I have. Why?”

“You believe so?” he asked, with heavy sarcasm. “Don’t you know you had?”

“I haven’t seen Fremont for years,” I said.

“I’m sure you haven’t. Not for seven years, to be exact. Not since he became suspicious as to the way you were administering your father-in-law’s estate.” We stepped into the crypt. “But I think you’re going to see him now.”

He pointed to a hole dug steeply into the dirt that was today the only flooring in the crypt. At the bottom of it there was, unmistakably, the figure of a human skeleton.

“Who found it?” I asked.

“I did,” said Nichols. “It took a great deal of searching, and a lot more of deductive reasoning. But I got the answer last winter, on the West Coast. And when I returned last night, I found I’d been right. As you can see.”

“Demarest Hall,” I pointed out, “was built upon a site reputed to be an Indian burial ground.”

“Did you ever see an Indian with a silver belt buckle on which were engraved the initials, F. B.?” Nichols sounded that buzz-saw laugh of his. “Flying Buffalo, maybe? But Flying Buffalo was shot through the back of the head with a .32 caliber bullet, which is still inside the skull.”

“It’s a very disturbing thing to happen. I don’t pretend to understand what you meant by deductive reasoning and so on. No doubt you have your own reasons. But if you think that this involves anything irregular, I suppose we had better notify the authorities.”

“Nice bluffing,” said Nichols. “But, on the other hand, why bother to notify anyone at all? Why not simply shovel the dirt back and let the dead past bury the dead? Maybe you’re right. Maybe you don’t know anything about this. But on the other hand, my belief is that you do. And why should I start the troopers to make an investigation into your past, asking you all sorts of embarrassing questions?”

“It might lead to scandal that the Hall could not afford to have,” I admitted. “It might upset the whole summer, and have even more far-reaching, well, consequences than you or I could foresee.”

Nichols picked up a shovel, and handed me another one.

“Exactly what I thought,” he said. “So, I suggest that we just cover this up and forget about it. Only this time, for God’s sake, you might have the sense to put down a cement floor.”

“A new cement floor down here, a place no longer used, would certainly cause comment,” I pointed out.

Nichols laughed, and nodded.

“I knew you had sense. It takes a practical man to do a job of this sort. We writers are apt to be visionary, and overlook certain elementary factors.” We started to shovel the dirt back into the grave. “But, regarding that business we were discussing in the city—can I take it that you’ll co-operate?”

“I won’t have anything to do with the thing you have in mind, Mr. Nichols,” I said. “But on the other hand, I’m always glad to co-operate. I’m sure there must be a happy solution.”

“Well, that’s all I’m asking for. Think of one, and the quicker and safer, the happier.”

We shoveled in silence, in the airless crypt. Nichols, to my way of thinking, more closely resembled an animal than a human being. But it is only too true, and pity that it is, that some men are either made, or become that way. He said, grinning again in that maddening way of his,

“In case you thought of getting rid of me first, P. C.”

“Yes, Walter?”

“I have left a communication for the police that will certainly strap you into the electric chair.”

It was uncanny. Silent again, we went on digging.