The Brass Bed

“It was I who found him,” Jolly said, “but before I answer any more questions I would like to be assured that you are actually a policeman.”

He looked surprised for a second, but no longer, and he held the notebook and pencil together in one hand while he got out identification and showed it to her and put it away again with the other.

“I assure you that I am actually a policeman,” he said.

“Well,” Jolly said, “I was uncertain because you are not wearing a uniform.”

“Not all policemen wear uniforms,” he said.

“No?” Jolly said. “I was of the opinion that all policemen were required to wear them.”

I was of the opinion myself that she hadn’t been of any such opinion at all, and I couldn’t understand why she was immediately needling him this way, and it’s the truth that I never understood half the things about her.

“Now,” he said, “what time was it that you found him?”

“As to that, I’m not sure,” Jolly said. She frowned a little and appeared to be thinking. “I believe that it was around ten o’clock. Do you think it must have been around ten o’clock, Felix? I called you very shortly afterward, and perhaps you can remember when it was that I called.”

“That’s right,” I said. “It was about ten.”

He turned toward me but didn’t look at me. He was looking instead at the watch on his wrist.

“You mean that you were not here when he was discovered?”

“No,” I said. “Jolly called me, and I came right over, but I was not here.”

“You should feel honored. Usually when someone finds a body, they call the police first, or at least first thing after a doctor, and after that they may call a friend if they are frightened and feel the need of company or something. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if you turned out to be the first person who ever got called into a thing like this ahead of a doctor or the police.”

It was sarcasm, of course, but it wasn’t said like sarcasm, but very mildly and in all apparent innocence, and the funny thing was, it gave it a kind of deadliness that it wouldn’t otherwise have had.

He turned back to Jolly.

“Why didn’t you call a doctor?” he said.

“Well,” Jolly said, “Felix asked me the same thing and he seemed to think it was important, but I must say that I can’t see the importance. Sid was quite dead, and I knew he was dead because I felt him and all and made sure of it, and I could see absolutely no sense in calling a doctor to look at someone who was dead.”

He watched her and nodded slowly and seemed very impressed with what he saw and heard.

“Logical,” he said. “Strictly logical. I hope you had as good a reason for not calling the police.”

“Certainly,” she said. “One does not think of the police all the time or when just anything happens, and it did not occur to me that the police were necessary in the case of an accident.”

“In accidents like this one,” he said, “they’re necessary.”

He looked down at the little notebook as if he were reading what he’d written there, but he hadn’t really written anything at all to read, and pretty soon he looked up again.

“Why don’t you just tell me about it?” he said. “How he happened to be in the garage and all about it.”

“I’ll be happy to do that,” Jolly said, “and it all started last night when I was out with Sid and Fran.”

“Who’s Fran?”

“Fran Tyler. She’s a friend of mine, and we often go out places together.”

“All right. Go ahead.”

“Well, we went to Sylvester’s, and it just happened that we met Felix and Harvey there, who were celebrating the end of school for the summer.”

“Who’s Harvey?”

“Harvey Griffin,” I said. “He teaches mathematics at the college.”

“Oh. I see. What happened next?”

“Sylvester’s was extremely dull,” Jolly said, “in spite of being expensive and having Gloria Finch, so everyone wanted to go somewhere else, except Harvey right at the beginning, and Sid suggested that we go out to Prince Sam’s Hallelujah House. It was decided to go, and we went, and owing to the fact that Prince Sam makes his drinks exceptionally strong, everyone got somewhat drunk, especially Sid, who had passed out when it was time to leave. Harvey and Felix and Fran left in Harvey’s car, and I took Sid in mine because he was rather a bother at the moment and more my responsibility than anyone else’s. On the way here, he became revived by the cool air and sat up and talked quite sensibly about several things. He wanted to come in with me, but I wouldn’t permit it, and so he said that he would just drive the car into the garage for me and walk on to his own place, which is not far. I told him that it was not necessary to drive the car into the garage, but he was bound to do it, and he did. I went on upstairs to bed, and all I know about it from then on is how I found him this morning when I came down and went out to the garage for the car, and the truth is, I was rather annoyed because he hadn’t left it in the drive where I could get to it without all the trouble.”

“You were up rather early, weren’t you, after such a big night?”

“Not at all. I recover very quickly from such things.”

“I wish I did. Do you mind telling me where you were going this morning?”