The Case of the Smoking Chimney

Chapter 17

“Pelly” Baxter was properly touched by grief, as became an old friend of the family.

For the butler he had just the right greeting, a democratic, man-to-man touch which was called for in the leveling presence of grief.

“Good afternoon, Arthur. Terrible, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, Mr. Baxter.”

“I realize something of how you must feel, Arthur.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“You’ve been with him for several years?”

“Four, sir.”

“A very marvellous man, Arthur. We’re going to miss him.”

“Yes, sir.”

“It’s been a terrible shock to Mrs. Pressman, I suppose.”

“Yes, sir, very much. She’s eaten hardly a thing.”

“Ask her if she’d like to see me for a few minutes, or whether she’d prefer to be left entirely alone. If the latter, Arthur, ask her if there’s anything I can do, anything at all.”

“Yes, sir. She’s upstairs. If you’ll wait in the library, sir, I’ll let her know you’re here.”

Pelly Baxter walked across the reception corridor and entered the spacious library.

The room was as filled with silence as a cemetery. The books on the shelves seemed as resentful of a living intruder as tombstones in the moonlight. The room was partially darkened by drawn curtains, heavy with the gloom of its silence.

Baxter walked over to where a shaft of sunlight filtered in through the half-closed drapes, looked out upon a well-kept lawn sprinkled here and there with shady trees and shrubbery. By an effort, he kept himself from walking the floor.

After several seconds’ silent contemplation, he turned back to the gloomy interior of the library, just as the butler, entering the room, said: “Mrs. Pressman will see you in her upstairs sitting-room... If you’ll step this way, please.”

The butler led the way up the stairs, down a corridor, and into a cosy, feminine sitting-room which was filled with the sunlight streaming through the French doors that opened on a little balcony. At the other end of the sitting-room, through an open door, Baxter glimpsed a bedroom.

Sophie Pressman was as alert as a football coach on the eve of a big game. Yet in the presence of the butler she seemed as strangely subdued as the huge library had been.

“Hello, Pelly,” she said without enthusiasm. “It was nice of you to come... There’s nothing anyone can say that helps, but knowing that people want to help makes all the difference in the world.”

She indicated a stack of telegrams on a table. “In times past I’ve had to send telegrams of condolence, and, groping for words in which to express something of what I felt, have realized how horribly futile words were. But now I realize that it isn’t what friends say that helps, but that they try to say it... Do sit down, Pelly. Let Arthur bring you a Scotch and soda.”

“No, thanks,” Pelly said. “I just dropped in to extend my condolences and see if there was anything on earth I could do — anything at all.”

“Nothing, thanks, Pelly. I knew I could count on you... That’s all, Arthur.”

The butler quietly closed the door.

For a moment there was silence in the room; then Pelly Baxter moved over closer to Sophie Pressman. “You’ve got it?” he asked.