Each blathering word another nail in his coffin as Ransom read the feeding frenzy among the press and possibly in both Griffin’s and Kohler’s heads. Philo had few friends in the press and fewer on the force.
“Here is Trelaine lying dead and headless himself, Philo!”
shouted Alastair. “Someone meant to drown ’im after beheading him!”
Kohler added, “He’s hardly the cause of her death and his own.”
Even young Callahan noticed the triangle here. Philo and Trelaine both vying for Miss Mandor. Philo’s reputation for bedding his models, and she sitting for him, rejecting his advances, and Trelaine learning of the sordidness. This is how it played out this moment in curious, disparate interpretations.
Alastair grabbed Philo and marched him off to stand below an enormous tree that’d escaped leveling as the perfect 222
ROBERT W. WALKER
herald of the Agricultural Exhibit. Below the sign of the exhibit, Alastair put it to him. “From where do you know Miss Mandor and this Trelaine chap? Tell me the whole story, and leave nothing out.”
“He brought her round after a while.”
“After a while?
“He’s my accountant for Ward’s Department Store, oversees all advertising.”
“Ahhh . . . you worked for him.”
“Indirectly . . . OK, yes. Insipid man without imagination, turning back all my best ideas. I tell you, Alastair, there were times when I’d’ve beheaded him, had I an axe.”
“Quiet such talk, man!”
“I met privately with Ches, having slipped her a note. I felt . . . thought this was the answer. A way around Trelaine.”
“The answer?”
Griffin joined them at the tree.
“You see, he made me test every product before doing a photographic ad. This meant visits to his uncle’s farm to test some vet tools. I did all he asked and, God, finally a plumb assignment was offered.” “Which was?”
“Ladies’ corsets and bloomers.”
“And this is where Miss Mandor came in?” asked Griff.
“Precisely.”
“She wanted to do some modeling . . . wanted it badly, I believed at the time.”
Ransom gritted his teeth. “I see . . . and you were just the man to initiate her into
“I posed her in artistic and tasteful displays, showing her incredible beauty and the corsets and stockings and—”
“And made advances,” said Griff.
“No, no, no . . . not like that . . . not in that way.”
“You mean not like you did with all the others, Polly included?” asked Ransom.
“This is . . . was a lady. I confess love in the air, such beauty and form, and so malleable and willing. I took count
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223
less shots, but I ne’er sullied her. She was special . . . laughed at my jokes, and we . . . we talked, Ransom, all night we—”
“Talked?”
“Of hopes, dreams, plans. It felt so . . . so right.”
“So what happened?”
“Her body was so expressive. The way she moved.”
“Get to the point, Philo!”
“Well, I mean when she put her clothes back on, it was as if . . . well . . . she became a completely different person.
Cold and reserved. She made it clear she meant to marry Trelaine for position and wealth—both things she did not dream of, did not pray for, did not speak of when . . . when she lay there before me naked.” “Damn . . . so when did Trelaine discover the nude photos? Did she show them to him?”
“She did not. He never knew.”
“But he told you to stay away from her, and you argued.”
“I merely told him she was a grown woman, fully capable of making her own decisions, despite her . . . silence on the matter as a whole.”
“You mean you
“Are you kidding? They’ve made a small fortune.”
“You mean you
“Lock, stock, and barrel . . . save the few I kept in a secret place.”
“Do you know how all this looks, Philo? Do you know how this might play in the newspapers should it come out?
How it might play in a courtroom?”
“I’ve never given one goddamn how things appear. Appearances are for fools and are always wrong, right?”
“The appearance of impropriety in the minds of most
why it’s preposterous, an outright lie.”
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“Philo, I want you to go home.”
“What? I have cuts yet to make.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” A reporter had drifted toward them, and his ear alerted like a hunting dog at Philo’s last words:
“I’m putting another photographer on the case.”
“What? Why that’s—”
“Standard practice! You’re far too personally involved.
You obviously loved her, as much as you
He searched Ransom’s eyes and cast a glance at Griff. “I can’t believe you . . . that this . . . this is gone so . . . so strangely for us.”
“I know you would never do this, Philo. Others who don’t know you may perceive otherwise. Now go. Trust me!”
He turned and walked dejectedly off, passing Callahan, who held out his new Wards wonder camera, saying, “You don’t wanna forget this, Mr. Keane.”
Philo looked at it as if he’d never seen it before. He said to Ransom, “This was what he gave me, free and clear, Alastair, if I’d never see Chesley again . . . and believing she meant what she’d said . . . I took the damn thing.” Ransom didn’t know what to say to this. “Take your prize home then, Philo, and either get drunk or get sober, but do it privately.”
“Alastair, this is none of my doing, no more than Polly’s murder was any of your doing.” He threw the camera at Ransom’s feet. “Give it to my replacement.”
“I can’t take your camera, Philo.”
“The other man will. Just do it.”
