clearly show my gratitude.
Sincerely yours,
NED BEAUMONT
When he had finished he read what he had written, tore it up, and rewrote it on another sheet of paper, using the same words, but rearranging them to make the ending of the second sentence read: “be able some day to show my gratitude more clearly.”
6
Ned Beaumont, in bathrobe and slippers this morning, was reading a copy of the Observer over his breakfast at a table by the window of his hospital-room when Opal Madvig came in. He folded the newspaper, put it face-down on the table beside his tray, and rose saying, “‘Lo, snip,” cordially. He was pale.
“Why didn’t you call me up when you got back from New York?” she demanded in an accusing tone. She too was pale. Pallor accentuated the childlike texture of her skin, yet made her face seem less young. Her blue eyes were wide open and dark with emotion, but not to be read easily. She held herself tall without stiffness, in the manner of one more sure of his balance than of stability underfoot. Ignoring the chair he moved out from the wall for her, she repeated, imperatively as before: “Why didn’t you?”
He laughed at her, softly, indulgently, and said: “I like you in that shade of brown.”
“Oh, Ned, please–”
“That’s better,” he said. “I intended coming out to the house, but– well–there were lots of things happening when I got back and a lot of loose ends of things that had happened while I was gone, and by the time I finished with those I ran into Shad O’Rory and got sent here.” He waved an arm to indicate the hospital.
Her gravity was not affected by the lightness of his tone.
“Are they going to hang this Des pain?” she asked curtly.
He laughed again and said: “We’re not going to get very far talking like this.”
She frowned, but said, “Are they, Ned?” with less haughtiness.
“I don’t think so,” he told her, shaking his head a little. “The chances are he didn’t kill Taylor after all.”
She did not seem surprised. “Did you know that when you asked me to–to help you get–or fix up–evidence against him?”
He smiled reproachfully. “Of course not, snip. What do you think I am?”
“You did know it.” Her voice was cold and scornful as her blue eyes. “You only wanted to get the money he owed you and you made me help you use Taylor’s murder for that.”
“Have it your own way,” he replied indifferently.
She came a step closer to him. The faintest of quivers disturbed her chin for an instant, then her young face was firm and bold again. “Do you know who killed him?” she asked, her eyes probing his.
He shook his head slowly from side to side.
“Did Dad?”
He blinked. “You mean did Paul know who killed him?”
She stamped a foot. “I mean did Dad kill him?” she cried.
He put a hand over her mouth. His eyes had jerked into focus on the closed door. “Shut up,” he muttered.
She stepped back from his hand as one of her hands pushed it away from her face. “Did he?” she insisted.
In a low angry voice he said: “If you must be a nit-wit at least don’t go around with a megaphone. Nobody cares what kind of idiotic notions you have as long as you keep them to yourself, but you’ve got to keep them to yourself.”
Her eyes opened wide and dark. “Then he did kill him,” she said in a small flat voice, but with utter certainty.
He thrust his face down towards hers. “No, my dear,” he said in an enraged sugary voice, “he didn’t kill him.” He held his face near hers. A vicious smile distorted his features.
Firm of countenance and voice, not drawing back from him, she said: “If he didn’t I can’t understand what difference it makes what I say or how loud.”
An end of his mouth twitched up in a sneer. “You’d be surprised how many things there are you can’t understand,” he said angrily, “and never will if you keep on like this.” He stepped back from her, a long step, and put his fists in the pockets of his bathrobe. Both corners of his mouth were pulled down now and there were grooves in his forehead. His narrowed eyes stared at the floor in front of her feet. “Where’d you get this crazy idea?” he growled.