'I read about her suicide the first of May, just a paragraph in the New York papers. I raced up to Times Square and got a Clarion-Ledger at that Out-of-Town Newspaper stand. I bought a Clarion every day that week, waiting for them to say what was in the note she sent you. They never did. They never said why she did it...
'Can you imagine how I felt? I didn't think she had done it just on account of me, but I did think that it was sort of a... general despondency. Which I was a major cause of.
'My work fell off after that. I was bucking too hard. I guess I felt I had to get terrific marks to justify what I'd done to her. I broke into a cold sweat before every exam, and my marks turned out pretty poor. I told myself it was because of the transfer; at NYU I had to make up a lot of required courses that weren't required at Stoddard, and I'd lost about sixteen credits besides. So I decided to come back to Stoddard in September, to get myself straightened out.' He smiled wryly. 'Also maybe to try to convince myself that I didn't feel guilty.
'Anyway, it was a mistake. Every time I saw one of the places we used to go to, or the Municipal Building...' He frowned. 'I kept telling myself it was her fault, that any other girl would have been mature enough to shrug it off... but it didn't do much good. It got to the point where I found myself going out of my way to walk past the building, needling myself, like looking into the airshaft tonight, visualizing her...'
'I know,' Ellen said, hurrying him, 'I wanted to look too. I guess it's a natural reaction.'
'No,' Powell said, 'you don't know what it means to feel responsible...' He paused, seeing Ellen's humorless smile. 'What are you smiling at?'
'Nothing.'
'Well... that's it. Now you tell me she did it because she was pregnant... two months. It's a rotten thing of course, but it makes me feel a whole lot better. I guess she still wouldn't be dead if I hadn't ditched her, but I couldn't be expected to know how things would turn out, could I? I mean, there's a limit to responsibility. If you keep going back you could blame it on anyone.' He drained the rest of his drink. 'I'm glad to see you've stopped running for the police,' he said. 'I don't know where you got the idea that I killed her.'
'Someone did kill her,' Ellen said. He looked at her wordlessly. The piano paused between selections, and in the sudden stillness she could hear the faint cloth rustlings of the person in the booth behind her. Leaning forward, she began talking, telling Powell of the ambiguously worded note, of the birth certificate, of something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue.
He was silent until she had finished. Then he said, 'My God... It can't be a coincidence,'-as eager as she to disprove suicide.
'This man you saw her with,' Ellen said. 'You're sure you don't know who he was?'
'I think he was in one of my classes that semester, but the two times I saw them together were fairly late in January, when exams had started and there were no more classes, so I couldn't make sure or find out his name. And right afterwards I left for New York.'
'Haven't you see him again?'
'I don't know,' Powell said. 'I'm not sure. Stoddard's a big campus.'
'And you're absolutely certain you don't know his name?'
'I don't know it now,' Powell said, 'but I can find it out in about an hour.' He smiled. 'You see, I've got his address.'
'I TOLD YOU I SAW THEM TOGETHER a COUple of times,' he said. 'Well the second time was one afternoon in a luncheonette across from the campus. I never expected to see Dorothy there; it wasn't a very popular place. That's why I was there. I didn't notice them until I'd sat down at the counter and then I didn't want to get up and leave because she'd already seen me in the mirror. I was sitting at the end of the counter, then two girls, then Dorothy and this guy. They were drinking malteds.
'The minute she saw me she started talking to him and touching his arm a lot; you know, trying to show me she had someone new. It made me feel awful, her doing that. Embarrassed for her. Then, when they were ready to leave, she gave a nod to those two girls sitting between us, turned to him and said in a louder-than-necessary voice, 'Come on, we can drop our books at your place.' To show me how chummy they were, I figured.
'As soon as they were gone one of the girls commented to the other about how good-looking he was. The other one agreed, and then she said something like 'He was going with so-and-so last year. It looks as if he's only interested in the ones who have money.'
'Well, I figured that if Dorothy was a sitting duck because she was on the rebound from me, then I ought to make sure that she wasn't being taken in by some gold-digger. So I left the luncheonette and followed them.
'They went to a house a few blocks north of the campus. He rang the bell a couple of times and then he took some keys out of his pocket and unlocked the door and they went in. I walked by on the other side of the street and copied down the address on one of my notebooks. I thought I would call up later, when someone else was there, and find out his name. I had a vague idea about speaking to some of the gills around school about him.
'I never did it though. On the way back to the campus, the... presumption of the whole thing hit me. I mean, where did I come off asking questions about this guy just on the basis of some remark made by a girl who probably had a bad case of sour grapes? It was a cinch he couldn't treat Dorothy any worse than I had. And that 'on the rebound' stuff; how did I know they weren't fine for each other?'
'But you still have the address?' Ellen asked anxiously.
'I'm pretty sure I do. I've got all my old notes in a suitcase in my room. We can go over there and get it right now if you want'
'Yes,' she agreed quickly. 'Then all well have to do is call up and find out who he is.'
'He isn't necessarily the right one,' Powell said, taking out his wallet.
'He must be. It can't be anyone she started going with much later than that.' Ellen stood up. 'There's still a phone call I'd like to make before we go.'
'To your assistant? The one who was waiting downstairs ready to call the police if you didn't show up in five minutes?'
'That's right,' she admitted, smiling. 'He wasn't waiting downstairs, but there really is someone.'
She went to the back of the dimly lit room, where a telephone booth painted black to match the walls stood like an up-ended coffin. She dialed 5-1000: 'KBRI, good evening,' a woman's voice chirruped.
'Good evening. May I speak to Gordon Gant please?'
'I'm sorry, but Mr. Gant's program is on the air now. If you call again at ten o'clock you might be able to catch him before he leaves the building.'
'Couldn't I speak to him while a record is on?'
'I'm sorry, but no telephone calls may be directed to a studio from which a program is being broadcast.'
'Well would you take a message for him?'
The woman sing-songed that she would be glad to take a message, and Ellen told her that Miss Kingship - spelled out-said that Powell-spelled out-was all right but had an idea as to who wasn't and Miss Kingship was going to Powell's home and would be there at ten o'clock, when Mr. Gant could call her. 'Any telephone numbers?'
'Darn,' Ellen said, opening the purse in her lap. 'I don't have the number, but the address'-managing to unfold the slip of paper without dropping the purse-'is Fifteen-Twenty West Thirty-Fifth Street.' The woman read the message back. 'That's right,' Ellen said. 'You'll be sure he gets it?'
'Of course I will,' the woman declared frostily. 'Thank you very much.'
Powell was feeding coins onto a small silver tray in the hand of a rapt waiter when Ellen returned to their booth. A smile appeared momentarily on the waiter's face and he vanished, trailing a mumbled thank you. 'All set,' Ellen said. She reached for her coat which was folded on the banquette where she had been sitting. 'By the way, what does he look like, our man? Aside from being so handsome that girls comment on it.'
'Blond, tall...' Powell said, pocketing Ms wallet.
'Another blond,' sighed Ellen.
'Dorothy went for us Nordic types.'
Ellen smiled, pulling on her coat. 'Our father is blond-or was until he lost his hair. All three of us-' Ellen's empty coatsleeve slapped over the top of the booth partition as her hand groped for it. 'Excuse me,' she said, glancing back over her shoulder, and then she saw that the next booth had been vacated. There was a cocktail glass and a dollar bill on the table, and a paper napkin which had been carefully torn into a delicate lacework web.
Powell helped her with the obstinate sleeve. 'Ready?' he asked, putting on his own coat. 'Ready,' she said.
