"Abnormally sensitive, if Tish hasreally been dead for over twenty years. Who weren't you supposed to mentionthese things to?"

"Anybody, especially you."

She drowned her nervous little giggle in the remainsof her cocoa.

chapter31

I went out into the grounds of the hotel.The high moon floated steadily in the sky and in the ornamental pools of the Spanishgarden. There was yellower light behind the shutters of Mrs. Deloney's cottage,and the sound of voices too low to be eavesdropped on.

I knocked on the door.

"What is it?" she said.

"Service." Detective service.

"I didn't order anything."

But she opened the door. I slipped in pasther and stood against the wall. Bradshaw was sitting on an English sofa besidethe fireplace in the opposite wall. A low fire burned in the grate, and gleamedon the brass fittings.

"Hello," he said.

"Hello, George."

He jumped visibly.

Mrs. Deloney said: "Get out ofhere." She seemed to have perfectly round blue eyes in a perfectly squarewhite face, all bone and will. "I'll call the house detective."

"Go ahead, if you want to spread the dirtaround."

She shut the door.

"We might as well tell him," Bradshaw said."We have to tell someone."

The negative jerk of her head was soviolent it threw her off balance. She took a couple of backward steps andregrouped her forces, looking from me to Bradshaw as if we were both her enemies.

"I absolutely forbid it," she said to him."Nothing is to be said."

"It's going to come out anyway. It will be betterif we bring it out ourselves."

"It is not going to come out. Why shouldit?"

"Partly," I said, "becauseyou made the mistake of coming here. This isn't your town, Mrs. Deloney. Youcan't put a lid on events the way you could in Bridgeton."

She turned her straight back on me. "Pay noattention to him, George."

"My name is Roy."

"Roy," she corrected herself."This man tried to bluff me yesterday in Bridgeton, but he doesn't know athing. All we have to do is remain quiet."

"What will that get us?"

"Peace."

"I've had my fill of that sort ofpeace," he said. "I've been living close up to it all these years.You've been out of contact. You have no conception of what I've beenthrough." He rested his head on the back of the sofa and lifted his eyesto the ceiling.

"You'll go through worse," shesaid roughly, "if you let down your back hair now."

"At least it will be different."

"You're a spineless fool. But I'm notgoing to let you ruin what remains of my life. If you do, you'll get nofinancial help from me."

"Even that I can do without."

But he was being careful to say nothing Iwanted to know. He'd been wearing a mask so long that it stuck to his face andcontrolled his speech and perhaps his habits of thought. Even the old womanwith her back turned was playing to me as if I was an audience.

"This argument is academic, in morethan one sense," I said. "The body isn't buried any longer. I knowyour sister Letitia shot your husband, Mrs. Deloney. I know she later marriedBradshaw in Boston. I have his mother's word for it—"

"His mother?"

Bradshaw sat up straight. "I do havea mother after all." He added in his earnest cultivated voice, with his eyesintent on the woman's: "I'm still living with her, and she has to beconsidered in this matter, too."

"You lead a very complicated life," shesaid.

"I have a very complicated nature."

"Very well, young Mr. Complexity, theball is yours. Carry it." She went to a love-seat in a neutral corner ofthe room and sat down there.

"I thought the ball was mine," Isaid, "but you're welcome to it, Bradshaw. You can start where everythingstarted, with the Deloney killing. You were Helen's witness, weren't you?"

He nodded once. "I shouldn't havegone to Helen with that heavy knowledge. But I was deeply upset and she was theonly friend I had in the world."

"Except Letitia."

"Yes. Except Letitia."

© Alexander Sviyash, 2009