glad the dance was over. Alice, who was ahead with Peter, called over her shoulder, 'Dick must have passed out.'
They could see Richard sprawled over the wheel of his big sedan, his head cradled in his arms; a pale vapor slipping out from under the left-hand running board. The gas was almost the color of milk in the moonlight; Dr Woodrin said. It was like a mist rising over a swamp.
Carmel had called to Peter, ahead: 'Dick s engine s on.'
Peter went to the sedan and opened the door by the driver s seat, the doctor said, and shook Richard s shoulder. 'Come on, old boy,' he had said. 'Time to go home.' He shook him again violently, and said, ' Dick!'
Charley, the waiter, put ale and a double scotch and soda on the table, accepted the quarter tip. Crane said, 'Thanks.'
The doctor said. 'Peter sounded scared, and I ran over to him.'
They pulled Richard from the sedan, he continued, stretched him on the ground, and he had jerked loose the rear-vision mirror and held it against Richard s lips. It hadn t clouded!
'I knew he was gone, but I sent someone to call an ambulance,' Dr Woodrin concluded. 'They worked on him at the hospital. He d been dead for some time.'
'Who d been dead?' a woman s voice asked.
Startled, Crane pivoted to encounter Carmel March s dark eyes. She was smiling. She wore a gray suit trimmed with blue fox and tailored so that it was tight over sleek hips and high breasts and padded at the shoulders to give them a military appearance. She looked like a Cossack lady.
'Who d been dead?' she repeated.
Back of her were a man and a woman. Crane knew, at once, that the woman was Alice March. She was blonde and plump, and there was a sweet smile on her face, as though it had been painted there. She was wearing a quantity of jewelry, a silver fox fur and a floppy hat with some imitation blue flowers on it.
'Hello, there,' Dr Woodrin said. 'Join us?'
It was Alice March. The man with her, a middle-sized man with a bored face and languid manners, was Talmadge March. 'How d you do,' he said to Crane. He didn t offer his hand.
In response to Crane s invitation, they ordered martinis. Crane had another double scotch and soda with them.
Carmel sat next to Crane. 'For the last time, who d been dead?'
Dr Woodrin said, 'I was telling Mr Crane about the former owner of his house.'
'The late lamented Richard?' Talmadge inquired.
Crane thought his lightly contemptuous attitude was hardly proper in front of the widow (even the divorced widow), but Alice March smiled sweetly. She seemed pleased.
Carmel asked, 'What about Richard?'
'Just the usual story of his death,' Dr Woodrin replied.
Talmadge drawled, 'I suppose our local Galen told you of the mystery?'
'No,' Crane said. 'A real mystery?'
'A lady.' Talmadge s amused eyes were on Carmel. 'A woman, anyway.'
'Hell!' said Dr Woodrin. 'That mystery s been buried a long time.'
'Has it?' Talmadge took a sip of his martini. 'I wonder.'
Dr Woodrin said, 'He s talking about lipstick marks on Richard s face.'
'Fresh lipstick,' Talmadge drawled. 'Naturally there was speculation as to the identity of the lady.'
Alice March, her voice sweet, said, 'It narrowed down to two or three, I believe.'
'Not to you, though, dear,' Carmel said.
Crane got an idea the two women didn t like each other.
'The marks looked green,' Dr Woodrin said. 'I don t know anybody who uses green lipstick.'
'I saw them,' Talmadge s smile was mocking. 'The moon plays strange tricks with colors.' He looked directly at Carmel. 'But the lady of the green lipstick never came forward.'
'She never explained what she was doing,' Dr Woodrin said sadly.
'Hell,' Crane said. 'She must have been kissing Richard.'
'A very fine piece of deduction,' Talmadge drawled.
'The kiss of death,' Crane said. 'That s what she was giving him.' He liked the phrase. 'The kiss of death.'
Carmel March s eyes, suddenly jet black, examined his face for a halved second. He grinned foolishly at her. She looked frightened, he thought.
Talmadge said, 'There was another clue.'
'How do you know so much about this?' demanded Dr Woodrin.
'I was there, and I have eyes… and a nose.'
Crane gaped at him. 'A nose?'
'There was an odor of perfume on Richard s coat.' Talmadge s speech was so affected it made him sound feminine. 'I caught it as I helped put him in the ambulance-you remember, Woodrin, I lent a hand?' Woodrin nodded.
'What was the odor?' Crane asked. 'Gardenia perfume.'
Carmel said coldly, 'You re making that up, Tam.'
'Am I, darling?'
Crane got an impression they had forgotten him. He was conscious of an undercurrent of genuine emotion, of a tensity in each of them, with the possible exception of Dr Woodrin. He supposed they ignored him because they thought he was either slightly simple, or drunk. He determined to maintain this impression.
Carmel s face was like a delicately tinted dancer s mask. 'You have a lawyer s imagination, Tam.' She did not change expression when she talked.
'If I have,' Talmadge countered, 'how is it you gave up gardenias after Dick died?'
That s done it, Crane thought. Now for an explosion. He wondered why Simeon March hadn t mentioned the gardenia business. He watched Carmel for the eruption, but none came.
She laughed, genuinely amused. What a fine detective you are!' She leaned toward Crane so that his face was in the hollow formed by her neck and shoulder. 'What do you smell, Mr Crane?'
Crane took a deep breath, then said gallantly, 'I smell Nassau in May.'
'No,' she said.
'I smell the Sabine hills after an April rain. I smell flower-strewn boats at Xochimilco. I smell the cherry blossoms of Nippon. I smell a hot tub filled with English bath salts.'
Every one laughed except Carmel, who said:
'No, specifically.'
Crane said, 'I smell gardenias.'
Talmadge didn t seem embarrassed. 'I thought I might trap you into a confession, Carmel.' He grinned at her over his martini. 'A lawyer s trick.'
'I think it s in pretty poor taste.' Carmel remained close to Crane. '… If it was a joke.'
Dr Woodrin was lighting a pipe. 'You ve a macabre sense of humor, Tam.'
Crane was delighted with Talmadge s composure under fire. He liked the name Talmadge March. He acted and sounded like the villains in the 1880 dramas of the New England barn revivals. All he needed was a Whip and a pair of handle-bar mustaches.
Talmadge was watching Carmel. 'Perhaps it is a bit on the macabre side.' She met his eyes angrily, and he looked away. 'I m sorry.'
Again Crane felt tension. He asked, 'Just what difference does it make who was in the car with Richard before he died?'
'A small town s prurient curiosity,' Carmel said bitterly.
'I m really sorry, Carmel,' said Talmadge.
The taproom was beginning to fill, and men and women, as smartly dressed as a New York cocktail-hour crowd, passed by their table. Everybody seemed to know everybody else, and most of the new arrivals either spoke or waved to Crane s companions. The newcomers were very gay and noisy.
'The haut monde of Marchton,' Talmadge drawled.
