She smiled calmly and asked: “You really think me capable of anything, don’t you?”
“That doesn’t matter,” I said. “What ought to matter to you is that you’ll probably wind up your life in prison somewhere.”
Her scream was not loud, but it was horrible, and the fear that had been in her face before was as nothing to that there now. She caught my lapels and clung to them, babbling: “Don’t say that, please don’t. Say you don’t think it.” She was trembling so I put an arm around her to keep her from falling.
We did not hear Gilbert until he coughed and asked: “Aren’t you well, Mamma?”
She slowly took her hands down from my lapels and moved back a step and said: “Your mother’s a silly woman.” She was still trembling, but she smiled at me and she made her voice playful: “You’re a brute to frighten me like that.”
I said I was sorry.
Gilbert put his coat and hat on a chair and looked from one to the other of us with polite interest. When it became obvious that neither of us was going to tell him anything he coughed again, said, “I’m awfully glad to see you,” and came over to shake hands with me.
I said I was glad to see him.
Mimi said: “Your eyes look tired. I bet you’ve been reading all afternoon without your glasses again.” She shook her head and told me: “He’s as unreasonable as his father.”
“Is there any news of Father?” he asked.
“Not since that false alarm about his suicide,” I said. “I suppose you heard it was a false alarm.”
“Yes.” He hesitated. “I’d like to see you for a few minutes before you go.”
“Sure.”
“But you’re seeing him now, darling,” Mimi said. “Are there secrets between you that I’m not supposed to know about?” Her tone was light enough. She had stopped trembling.
“It would bore you.” He picked up his hat and coat, nodded at me, and left the room.
Mimi shook her head again and said: “I don’t understand that child at all. I wonder what he made of our tableau.” She did not seem especially worried. Then, more seriously: “What made you say that, Nick?”
“About you winding up in–?”
“No, never mind.” She shuddered. “I don’t want to hear it. Can’t you stay for dinner? I’ll probably be all alone.”
“I’m sorry I can’t. Now how about this evidence you found?”
“I didn’t really find anything. That was a lie.” She frowned earnestly. “Don’t look at me like that. It really was a lie.”
“So you sent for me just to lie to me?” I asked. “Then why’d you change your mind?”
She chuckled. “You must really like me, Nick, or you wouldn’t always be so disagreeable.”
I could not follow that line of reasoning. I said: “Well, I’ll see what Gilbert wants and run along.”
“I wish you could stay.”
“I’m sorry I can’t,” I said again. “Where’ll I find him?”
“The second door to the– Will they really arrest Chris?”
“That depends,” I told her, “on what kind of answers he gives them. He’ll have to talk pretty straight to stay out.”
“Oh, he’ll–” she broke off, looked sharply at me, asked, “You’re not playing a trick on me? He’s really that Kelterman?”
“The police are sure enough of it.”
“But the man who was here this afternoon didn’t ask a single question about Chris,” she objected. “He only asked me if I knew–”
“They weren’t sure then,” I explained. “It was just a half-idea.”
“But they’re sure now?”
I nodded.
“How’d they find out?”
“From a girl he knows,” I said.
“Who?” Her eyes darkened a little, but her voice was under control.
“I can’t remember her name.” Then I went back to the truth: “The one that gave him his alibi for the afternoon of the murder.”
“Alibi?” she asked indignantly. “Do you mean to tell me the police would take the word of a girl like that?”
“Like what?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I don’t. Do you know the girl?”
“No,” she said as if I had insulted her. She narrowed her eyes and lowered her voice until it was not much more than a whisper: “Nick, do you suppose he killed Julia?”