The Brass Bed
- Автор: Флора Флетчер
- Год: 1956
- Язык: английский
- Год: Lion Books
- Жанр: Романы для взрослых
Электронная книга - «The Brass Bed». Краткое содержание книги:
...and the root of it all lay hidden in the secret of THE BRASS BED.
“I was going to pick up Fran, and we were going downtown and have lunch and look at things in shops. However, since she has not called to find out why I haven’t arrived, I assume she is still sleeping and wouldn’t have wanted to anyhow. Perhaps Harvey is with her. Do you think Harvey may be with her, Felix?”
“I don’t think so,” I said, “but he may be.”
Jason said abruptly, “Why did he leave the engine running?”
“Felix also asked me that,” Jolly said, “and I couldn’t say, and I still can’t, because it is apparent that I have no way of knowing. However, he was quite drunk, as I explained, and it is entirely possible that he did not know precisely what he was doing or not doing.”
“That’s something to think about, I guess, and that’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve been thinking about the times I’ve got out of a car and left the engine running because I’d had too much to drink, and so far as I can remember there weren’t any. It seems to me that turning off the engine of a car is such a habitual thing that it would be done reflexively without thinking, even by a drunk.”
“I can only point out that in Sid’s case it wasn’t.”
“You’re right. It wasn’t. I can’t deny that. Another thing I’m thinking about, though, is that you said he revived and talked sensibly on the way home.”
“Oh, that. Well, it’s a fact that he revived, but you are surely aware of how that often occurs with someone who has passed out, and I admit that it has even happened to me a time or two. What I mean is, you come around and feel pretty good and ready to go, and then all of a sudden you simply pass out again very quickly and probably do not wake up again for a long time.”
“I see. You are certainly very sharp about these things, Mrs. Craig, and I’m thankful that you are willing to help me out this way. Let’s see now. We concede that he got out of the car without turning off the engine. He then goes around behind the car and pulls the overhead door down and fastens it securely. After that, he immediately passes out again and lies down on the floor and unfortunately is killed from breathing carbon monoxide gas. The car keeps on running until all the fuel is used up and then quits. Is that the way you think it must have happened?”
“I think it is quite obviously the way it happened.”
“It does seem like it, doesn’t it? I’m a little bothered, however, by how he pulled down that heavy door and even took the trouble to fasten it and then collapsed immediately. If I hadn’t seen the evidence of it in this case, I wouldn’t have thought something like that was at all probable, or even possible.”
“Sid was peculiar. All sorts of odd things happened to him.”
“Well, that may explain it, of course. I suppose it might have happened to someone who was peculiar.”
“In addition, perhaps the exertion of pulling down the door precipitated his collapse. Do you think that’s possible?”
“I don’t know. It’s something else to think about, anyhow, and I will admit that you have given me more to think about than anyone else that I can remember from a long time back.”
He was silent, again reading the blank page in his little notebook. It took him longer than before, there now being a greater accumulation of nothing, and it was at least a minute before he raised his eyes.
“I hope you don’t think I’m unsympathetic,” he said. “It seems to me that you have been having more than your share of trouble lately.”
This was something I had been expecting and waiting for, and I’m certain that Jolly had too, and I thought that it might have a bad effect on her, but it didn’t. Not visibly, anyway.
“Because of Kirby’s drowning and all?” she said.
“Yes. I read about it in the papers, of course. It must have been a pretty bad experience for you, and now this thing on top of it. I will have to say that I admire the way you are accepting it. I hope you don’t get any foolish ideas that you are bad luck or something. You understand what I mean. Having two men so close to you die almost in your presence in so short an interval. Some people would begin to think they brought bad luck or some such nonsense, and I hope you don’t get to thinking anything like that.”
“Not at all. So far as I can see, I am in no way responsible, and I am not inclined to blame myself, however bad I may feel.”
“That’s the spirit. I knew I could depend on you to be sensible. I imagine that you and your husband were still in love with each other, weren’t you?”
“Why do you ask?”
“I don’t want to embarrass you, of course. What I should have asked is, were you amicable?”
“Frankly, I am of the opinion that you shouldn’t have asked anything about it at all, because it clearly has nothing to do with Sid’s dying in my garage. In spite of that, however, I am willing to tell you that Kirby and I were amicable enough in our own way.”
“Your own way? Was that different from the usual way?”
“I don’t know what the usual way is, and I doubt that there is such a thing, because I am sure that everyone is anything in a way that is a little different from other ways. As for Kirby, he was very virile, and frequently offensive, and it was not long ago that he hit me in the eye and blacked it.”
“But you were amicable in your own way, even though he hit you in the eye and blacked it.”
“It is necessary to be tolerant in such matters. As anyone can tell you, he was almost always hitting someone in the eye or something.”
“I admire tolerance. If there’s anyone in the world I admire, it’s the person who is willing to allow the other fellow his idiosyncrasies. ” Jason turned his head and looked levelly at me. “As I understand it, you are merely a friend. Is that so?”
“Yes,” I said, “that’s so.”
“You must be a pretty special friend, as a matter of fact. I’m sure a person who gets called in a case like this even before the doctor and the police must be pretty special.”
“All friends are special,” Jolly said, “but Felix is more special than most.”
“Yes. I thought that must be the way of it. And a special friend is very good to have around at certain times, I’ll admit that. Now a little more about Mr. Pollock. Sid, as you call him. Since you have not mentioned them or called them, I assume that he has no relatives in the city.”
“No. So far as I know, he has only a mother and father who live in a small town named Clearvale. It’s about a hundred miles northeast of here.”
“I know the town.”
He wrote the name of it in the little notebook, which was the first and only thing he wrote during all the time we talked, and then closed the notebook and put it into a pocket with the pencil.
“I want to thank you for answering my questions,” he said, “and chances are I’ll want you to answer others later that I’ve forgotten to ask now. In the meanwhile, I’ll go back out to the garage and see that things are progressing in order.”
He turned and went out into the hall, and a moment later we heard the kitchen screen door bang behind him, and another moment later a car came into the drive and stopped. In her chair, Jolly smiled at me quietly, but I was unable to smile back.
“In my judgment, I got through that very well,” she said. “The truth is, I am quite proud of myself.”
“Yes, you did,” I said. “You were in perfect control of the situation.”
“Do you think so? When it came down to it, I was not frightened after all.”
“I could see that you weren’t.”
She sat looking at her hands and smiling at them. After a while the car that had stopped in the drive started up again and left, and I knew that it had come for Sid and got him.
I left then, and Jolly went silently upstairs — to her brass bed.