and went down to the beach. The Atlantic was practically lapping at our doorstep; just cross Ocean Boulevard and there it was, shimmering in the late afternoon sunlight. The chop was not strong enough to give me second thoughts.
I try to swim two miles a day. Not out and back; that's for idiots. I swam parallel to the shore, about fifty feet out. I go a mile north or south and then return. I don't exactly wallow, as I told Meg Trumble, but I sort of plow along. However, since it is the only physical exercise I get-other than an occasional game of darts at the Pelican Club-it makes me feel virtuous and does wonders for the appetite. And thirst.
My father is very big on tradition. One of the ceremonies he insists on honoring is the cocktail hour, a preprandial get-together that usually lasts thirty minutes during which we imbibe martinis he mixes to the original formula of three parts gin to one of vermouth. Not dry enough for you? Complain to Prescott McNally, but be prepared to face a raised eyebrow-and a hairy one at that.
'Are you going out tonight, Archy?' my father asked that evening at the family gathering.
'No, sir,' I said, 'I hadn't planned to.'
'Good,' he said. 'Roderick Gillsworth phoned this afternoon and wants to come over at nine o'clock. It concerns some matter he didn't wish to discuss at the office.'
'And you want me to be present?' I asked, somewhat surprised.
The governor chomped on his olive which, in a small departure from his love of the hallowed, had been stuffed with a sliver of jalapeno. 'Yes,' he said, 'Gillsworth particularly asked that you sit in.'
'And how is Lydia?' mother asked, referring to the client's wife.
Father knitted his brows which, considering their hirsuteness, might have resulted in a sweater. 'I asked,' he said, 'but the man didn't give me a direct answer. Very odd. Shall we go down to dinner?'
The scallops were super, the flavor enhanced by a muscadet the lord of the manor had consented to uncork. He's inclined to be a bit mingy with his vintage wines. It makes little difference to mother, who drinks only sauterne with dinner-a dreadful habit my father and I have never persuaded her to break. But I like a rare wine occasionally: something that doesn't come in a bottle with a handle and screw-top.
For dessert, Ursi Olson, our cook-housekeeper, served big slices of a succulent honeydew with wedges of fresh lime. Surfeited, I climbed upstairs to my cave and did a spot of work before Roderick Gillsworth arrived.
During discreet inquiries in the past I had learned to keep a record of my investigations in a ledger. I have a tendency to forget things that may or may not turn out to be important.
So I scribbled short notes on the cases in which I was engaged. That evening I started a new chapter on the catnapping of the malevolent Peaches. I jotted down everything I had learned during the day, which wasn't a great deal. When finished, I put my completed notes aside and glanced at my Mickey Mouse wristwatch (an original, not a reproduction). I saw that I had a quarter-hour before my presence was required in my father's study, to listen to what was troubling our client. I spent the time recalling what I knew of Roderick Gillsworth.
He was a poet, self-proclaimed. His first book, The Joy of Flatulence, was so obscure and prolix that critics were convinced he was a genius, and on the strength of their ecstatic reviews TJOF sold 527 copies. But Gillsworth's subsequent volumes didn't do as well, and he accepted employment as poet-in-residence at an exclusive liberal arts college for women in New Hampshire.
There he married one of his students, Lydia Bark-ham. She was heiress to a fortune in old money accumulated by a Rhode Island family that began by making string, graduated to rope, moved on to steel cables, and eventually sold out to a Japanese conglomerate at such a humongous price that one financial commentator termed it 'Partial revenge for Pearl Harbor.'
Lydia and Roderick Gillsworth moved to Palm Beach in the late 1970s and, despite their wealth, bought a relatively modest home on Via Del Lago, about a block from the beach. They lived quietly, entertained infrequently, and apparently had little interest in tennis, golf, or polo. This did not make them pariahs, of course, but they were considered somewhat odd. According to Palm Beach gossips (the entire population) the Gillsworths had what the French label a mariage blanc, and what your grandmother probably called a 'marriage in name only.' Naturally I cannot vouch for that.
Roderick continued to write poetry, but now his slim volumes were privately printed, handsomely bound in calfskin, and given as Christmas gifts to personal friends. The McNally family had eight of his books, the pages still uncut. The most recent collection of his poems was titled The Cross-Eyed Atheist.
When I entered my father's study on the ground floor, Gillsworth was already lounging in a leather wing chair. I went over to shake his hand and he didn't bother rising. I was an employee and about ten years younger than he, but I still felt it was bad manners. My father sat behind his big leather-topped desk, and I drew up a straight chair and positioned it so that I could observe both men without turning my head back and forth.
'Archy,' the don said, 'Mr. Gillsworth apparently has a personal problem he wishes to discuss. He is aware of your responsibility for discreet inquiries and the success you have achieved in several investigations with a minimum of publicity.'
'No publicity,' the poet said sharply. 'I must insist on that: absolutely no publicity. Lydia would never forgive me if this got out.'
Father stroked his mustache with a knuckle. That mustache was as bristly as his eyebrows, but considerably wider. It was the Guardsman's type and stretched the width of his face, a thicket that was a sight to behold when he was eating barbecued ribs. 'Every effort will be made to keep the matter confidential, Mr. Gillsworth,' he said. 'What exactly is it?'
Our client drew a deep breath. 'About three weeks ago,' he began, 'a letter arrived at our home addressed to my wife. Plain white envelope, no return address. At the time Lydia was up north visiting cousins in Pawtucket. Fortunately she had left instructions to open her mail and forward to Rhode Island whatever I thought important and might require her immediate attention. I say 'fortunately' because this particular letter was a vicious threat against Lydia's life. It spelled out the manner of her murder in such gruesome and sickening detail that it was obviously the product of a deranged mind.'
'Dreadful,' my father said.
'Did the letter give any reason for the threat?' I asked.
'Only in vague terms,' Gillsworth said. 'It said she must die to pay for what she is doing. That was the phrase used: 'for what she is doing.' Complete insanity, of course. Lydia is the most innocent of women. Her conduct is beyond reproach.'
'Do you have the letter with you, Mr. Gillsworth?' father asked.
The poet groaned. 'I destroyed it,' he said. 'And the envelope it came in. I hoped it might be a single incident, and I had no wish that Lydia would ever find and read that piece of filth. So I burned it.'
Then we sat in silence. Gillsworth had his head averted, and I was able to study him a moment. He was a tall, extremely thin man with a bony face split by a nose that ranked halfway between Cyrano and Jimmy Durante.
He was wearing a short-sleeved leisure suit of black linen. With his mighty beak, scrawny arms, and flapping gestures he looked more bird than bard. I wondered what a young coed had seen in the poet that persuaded her to plight her troth. But it's hopeless to try to imagine what spouses find in each other. It's better to accept Ursi Olson's philosophy. She just shrugs and says, 'There's a cover for every pot.'
The silence stretched, and when the seigneur didn't ask the question that had to be asked, I did.
'But you've received another letter?' I prompted Gillsworth.
He nodded, and the stare he gave me seemed dazed, as if he could not quite comprehend the inexplicable misfortune that had befallen him and his wife. 'Yes,' he said in a voice that lacked firmness. 'Two days ago. Lydia is home now, and she opened the letter, read it, showed it to me. I thought it even more disgusting and frightening than the first. Again it said that she must die for what she was doing, and it described her murder in horrendous and obscene detail. Obviously the work of a homicidal maniac.'
'How did your wife react to the letter?' my father asked gently.
Gillsworth shifted uncomfortably in his wing chair. 'First,' he said, 'I must give you a little background. My wife has always been interested in the occult and in psychic phenomena. She believes in supernatural forces, the existence of spirits, ESP, and that sort of thing.' He paused.
I was curious and asked, 'Do you also believe in those things, sir?'
He made one of his floppy gestures. 'I don't believe and I don't disbelieve. Quite frankly, the supernatural is of minor interest to me. My work is concerned with the conflict between the finite expression of the human psyche
