was of it—I believe it was what they call a Bikini suit—was bright yellow. A beautiful color combination but I didn’t look at it long. I was looking at Robin instead, at her long, slim but rounded legs, at the swell of her breasts under the bra, at the lovely olive tint of her skin between the bra and the trunks.
And after a while, I don’t know how long, I got the hell away from there and found myself back at the Linc and then driving it away from there, driving fast. Along the shore road, away from town, toward nowhere. A siren behind me told me that I was going too fast and the state patrolman in the car confirmed the fact and gave me a ticket to prove it.
I turned around at the next turnable-around-in place and drove back to town, this time so slowly that I was probably more of a road hazard than when I’d been speeding.
The lemon-yellow Rambler was still parked in the lot by the beach, but I kept going. I stopped and bought a bottle of whisky and took it home with me.
Home was a room like a hotbox, although it was late afternoon now, almost five o’clock. I made myself a long cold drink with whisky and water and ice cubes. I tookmy coat and tie and shoes off and made myself physically comfortable. I opened all the windows wide and made a mental note to get myself an electric fan for the room.
I sat and sipped at the cold drink and the shadows lengthened outside and the room got cooler and physically I felt all right.
Mentally I felt like hell.
I knew now that I’d lost something that was terribly important to me—and I didn’t know why I’d lost it, or any way of finding out. Or any way of getting it back.
And the future, ahead of me, looked as blank as my forgotten past.
Arch had been right; he couldn’t guess how utterly right he had been. I should never have looked up Robin. I should not have gone to the apartment to see her; I should not have taken her to dinner last night; I should not have followed her to the beach this afternoon. I shouldn’t see her again, ever.
At least not until and unless I knew what had prompted that sudden expression of fear in her face last night, knew why she had divorced me, knew what had gone wrong between us.
And did Robin think, despite her protest to the contrary, that I had killed Grandma Tuttle? If so, in God’s name
why
did she think so? Had I, at any time in our marriage, been suspect of being insane, of having homicidal tendencies?
I wanted to beat my head against the wall so I could remember.
I wanted to know whether I was a psychopathic murderer or not.
The police thought I wasn’t. But how could they be sure? Henderson thought he had heard a shot at eleven-thirty, and at eleven-thirty I was alibied. But he could have been wrong; he admitted he’d thought the shot might have been a backfire. And he’d heard only one, whereas two shots had been fired in the room. And the medical examiner, seeing the body at half past twelve, had said she’d been dead
about
an hour, and since that fitted Henderson’s story the police obviously accepted it as being exact. But could a medical examiner be sure that a bodyhad been an exact hour dead? As against half an hour? As against, for that matter, an hour and a half—then a psychopathic killer returning to the scene of his crime for whatever mad reason, suddenly becoming sane again and getting amnesia from the shock of realization of what he’d done? Perhaps—as he would have done if sane—phoning the police to give himself up and forgetting, during the call, who he was and what had happened?
The cut screen, the money—only a couple of hundred dollars, it had been estimated—missing from the safe, the absence of the murder gun—yes, but if I’d been crazy enough to kill in the first place, might I not have, with a madman’s cunning, planned those things? Particularly if the murder had been done an hour and a half before the medical examination and, when Lieutenant Walter Smith had seen me, I had been
And after a while, I don’t know how long, I got the hell away from there and found myself back at the Linc and then driving it away from there, driving fast. Along the shore road, away from town, toward nowhere. A siren behind me told me that I was going too fast and the state patrolman in the car confirmed the fact and gave me a ticket to prove it.
I turned around at the next turnable-around-in place and drove back to town, this time so slowly that I was probably more of a road hazard than when I’d been speeding.
The lemon-yellow Rambler was still parked in the lot by the beach, but I kept going. I stopped and bought a bottle of whisky and took it home with me.
Home was a room like a hotbox, although it was late afternoon now, almost five o’clock. I made myself a long cold drink with whisky and water and ice cubes. I tookmy coat and tie and shoes off and made myself physically comfortable. I opened all the windows wide and made a mental note to get myself an electric fan for the room.
I sat and sipped at the cold drink and the shadows lengthened outside and the room got cooler and physically I felt all right.
Mentally I felt like hell.
I knew now that I’d lost something that was terribly important to me—and I didn’t know why I’d lost it, or any way of finding out. Or any way of getting it back.
And the future, ahead of me, looked as blank as my forgotten past.
Arch had been right; he couldn’t guess how utterly right he had been. I should never have looked up Robin. I should not have gone to the apartment to see her; I should not have taken her to dinner last night; I should not have followed her to the beach this afternoon. I shouldn’t see her again, ever.
At least not until and unless I knew what had prompted that sudden expression of fear in her face last night, knew why she had divorced me, knew what had gone wrong between us.
And did Robin think, despite her protest to the contrary, that I had killed Grandma Tuttle? If so, in God’s name
why
did she think so? Had I, at any time in our marriage, been suspect of being insane, of having homicidal tendencies?
I wanted to beat my head against the wall so I could remember.
I wanted to know whether I was a psychopathic murderer or not.
The police thought I wasn’t. But how could they be sure? Henderson thought he had heard a shot at eleven-thirty, and at eleven-thirty I was alibied. But he could have been wrong; he admitted he’d thought the shot might have been a backfire. And he’d heard only one, whereas two shots had been fired in the room. And the medical examiner, seeing the body at half past twelve, had said she’d been dead
about
an hour, and since that fitted Henderson’s story the police obviously accepted it as being exact. But could a medical examiner be sure that a bodyhad been an exact hour dead? As against half an hour? As against, for that matter, an hour and a half—then a psychopathic killer returning to the scene of his crime for whatever mad reason, suddenly becoming sane again and getting amnesia from the shock of realization of what he’d done? Perhaps—as he would have done if sane—phoning the police to give himself up and forgetting, during the call, who he was and what had happened?
The cut screen, the money—only a couple of hundred dollars, it had been estimated—missing from the safe, the absence of the murder gun—yes, but if I’d been crazy enough to kill in the first place, might I not have, with a madman’s cunning, planned those things? Particularly if the murder had been done an hour and a half before the medical examination and, when Lieutenant Walter Smith had seen me, I had been
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