He winced, but did not say anything.
Ned Beaumont, after a moment’s frowning silence, said: “A campaign-speech–some truth gaudied up.” He grimaced. “You had a favor to ask.”
The Senator looked down at the floor, then up at Ned Beaumont again. “But that is for sour ear alone.”
Ned Beaumont said: “No.”
“Forgive me, dear,” the Senator said to his daughter, then to Ned Beaumont: “I have told you the truth, but I realize fully the position I have put myself in. The favor I ask is the return of my revolver and five minutes–a minute–alone in this room.”
Ned Beaumont said: “No.”
The Senator swayed with a hand to his breast, the handkerchief hanging down from his hand.
Ned Beaumont said: “You’ll take what’s coming to you.”
2
Ned Beaumont went to the street-door with Farr, his grey-haired stenographer, two police-detectives, and the Senator.
“Not going along?” Farr asked.
“No, but I’ll be seeing you.”
Farr pumped his hand up and down with enthusiasm. “Make it sooner and oftener, Ned,” he said. “You play tricks on me, but I don’t hold that against you when I see what comes of them.”
Ned Beaumont grinned at him, exchanged nods with the detectives, bowed to the stenographer, and shut the door. He walked upstairs to the white-walled room where the piano was. Janet Henry rose from the lyre-end sofa when he came in.
“They’ve gone,” he said in a consciously matter-of-fact voice.
“Did–did they–?”
“They got a pretty complete statement out of him–more details than he told us.”
“Will you tell me the truth about it?”
“Yes,” he promised.
“What–” She broke off. “What will they do to him, Ned?”
“Probably not a great deal. His age and prominence and so on will help him. The chances are they’ll convict him of manslaughter and then set the sentence aside or suspend it.”
“Do you think it was an accident?”
Ned Beaumont shook his head. His eyes were cold. He said bluntly: “I think he got mad at the thought of his son interfering with his chances of being re-elected and hit him.”
She did not protest. She was twining her fingers together. When she asked her next question it was with difficulty. “Was–was he going to–to shoot Paul?”
“He was. He could get away with the grand-old-man-avenging-the-death-the-law-couldn’t-avenge line. He knew Paul wasn’t going to stay dummied up if he was arrested. Paul was doing it, just as he was supporting your father for re-election, because he wanted you. He couldn’t get you by pretending he’d killed your brother. He didn’t care what anybody else thought, but he didn’t know you thought he had and he would have cleared himself in a second if he had.”
She nodded miserably. “I hated him,” she said, “and I wronged him and I still hate him.” She sobbed. “Why is that, Ned?”
He made an impatient gesture with one hand. “Don’t ask me riddles.”
“And you,” she said, “tricked me and made a fool of me and brought this on me and I don’t hate you.”
“More riddles,” he said.
“How long, Ned,” she asked, “how long have you known–known about Father?”
“I don’t know. It’s been in the back of my head for a long time. That was about the only thing that’d fit in with Paul’s foolishness. If he’d killed Taylor he’d’ve let me know before this. There was no reason why he should hide that from me. There was a reason why he’d hide your father’s crimes from me. He knew I didn’t like your father. I’d made that plain enough. He didn’t think he could trust me not to knife your father. He knew I wouldn’t knife him. So, when I’d told him I was going to clear up the killing regardless of what he said, he gave me that phony confession to stop me.”
She asked: “Why didn’t you like Father?”
“Because,” he said hotly, “I don’t like pimps.”
Her face became red, her eyes abashed. She asked in a dry constricted voice: “And you don’t like me because–?”
He did not say anything.
She bit her lip and cried: “Answer me!”
“You’re all right,” he said, “only you’re not all right for Paul, not the way you’ve been playing him. Neither of you were anything but poison for him. I tried to tell him that. I tried to tell him you both considered him a lower form of animal life and fair game for any kind of treatment. I tried to tell him your father was a man all his life used to winning without much trouble and that in a hole he’d either lose his head or turn wolf. Well, he was in love with you, so–” He snapped his teeth together and walked over to the piano.