Jeff came in, followed by Rusty, naked.
O’Rory stood up and spread his hands apart in a little gesture of finality. “Shot himself through the roof of the mouth,” he said. “Finis.”
Ned Beaumont turned and went out of the room. In the hall he met Opal Madvig.
“What, Ned?” she asked in a frightened voice.
“Mathews has shot himself. I’ll go down and stay with her till you get some clothes on. Don’t go in there. There’s nothing to see.” He went downstairs.
Eloise Mathews was a dim shape lying on the floor beside the bench.
He took two quick steps towards her, halted, and looked around the room with shrewd cold eyes. Then he walked over to the woman, went down on a knee beside her, and felt her pulse. He looked at her as closely as he could in the dull light of the dying fire. She gave no sign of consciousness. He pulled the paper he had taken from her husband’s table out of his pocket and moved on his knees to the fireplace, where, in the red embers’ glow, he read:
I, Howard Keith Mathews, being of sound mind and memory, declare this to be my last will and testament:
I give and bequeath to my beloved wife, Eloise Braden Mathews, her heirs and assigns, all my real and personal property, of whatever nature or kind.
I hereby appoint the State Central Trust Company the sole executor of this will.
In witness whereof I have hereunto subscribed my name this .
Ned Beaumont, smiling grimly, stopped reading and tore the will three times across. He stood up, reached over the fire-screen, and dropped the torn pieces of paper into the glowing embers. The fragments blazed brightly a moment and were gone. With the wrought-iron shovel that stood beside the fire he mashed the paper-ash into the wood-coals.
Then he returned to Mrs. Mathews’s side, poured a little whisky into the glass he had drunk from, raised her head, and forced some of the liquor between her lips. She was partly awake, coughing, when Opal Madvig came downstairs.
6
Shad O’Rory came down the stairs. Jeff and Rusty were behind him. All of them were dressed. Ned Beaumont was standing by the door, in raincoat and hat.
“Where are you going, Ned?” Shad asked.
“To find a phone.”
O’Rory nodded. “That’s a good enough idea,” he said, “but there’s something I want to ask you about.” He came the rest of the way down the stairs, his followers close behind him.
Ned Beaumont said: “Yes?” He took his hand out of his pocket. The hand was visible to O’Rory and the men behind him, but Ned Beaumont’s body concealed it from the bench where Opal sat with arms around Eloise Mathews. A square pistol was in the hand. “Just so there won’t be any foolishness. I’m in a hurry.”
O’Rory did not seem to see the pistol, though he came no nearer. He said, reflectively: “I was thinking that with an open ink-bottle and a pen on the table and a chair up to it it’s kind of funny we didn’t find any writing up there.”
Ned Beaumont smiled in mock astonishment. “What, no writing?” He took a step backwards, towards the door. “That’s a funny one, all right. I’ll discuss it with you for hours when I come back from phoning.”
“Now would be better,” O’Rory said.
“Sorry.” Ned Beaumont backed swiftly to the door, felt behind him for the knob, found it, and had the door open. “I won’t be gone long.” He jumped out and slammed the door.
The rain had stopped. He left the path and ran through tall grass around the other side of the house. From the house came the sound of another door slamming in the rear. The river was audible not far to Ned Beaumont’s left. He worked his way through underbrush towards it.
A high-pitched sharp whistle, not loud, sounded somewhere behind him. He floundered through an area of soft mud to a clump of trees and turned away from the river among them. The whistle came again, on his right. Beyond the trees were shoulder-high bushes. He went among them, bending forward from the waist for concealment, though the night’s blackness was all but complete.