'You don't know that,' sobbed Nan. 'There's no reason to beheve that. And anyhow, I didn't kiU Christy. 1 didn't put the man in prison. I just want to marry the man I love.'
'Honey,' Dorothy sat down beside her and put her arm around the tense shoulders. 'Just listen a minute, please. Johnny and I do care. And the one we care about the most is you. Now you know that.'
i
Nan's head went down.
'Aunt Emily, too. Remember?' said Dorothy gently. 'Honey, you had a wonderful dream. A wonderful man from a wonderful background came out of the blue and you fell in love. You did just exactly that. You fell. You were going to be married and live happily ever after. Now, you are fighting to keep that dream just as it was. But you shouldn't. Really, you shouldn't. There are some strange things about the Bartee family . . .'
'I don't care,' sobbed Nan. 'There probably are strange things about everybody's family. But people get married, when they're in love.'
Dorothy said, ''True.'
'I think it is too wonderful and rare!' Nan said. ''You just can't believe it.'
Dorothy looked stem and sad. 'I guess I'll have to tell you something.'
'What now?' Nan sighed.
'Dick's awfully interested in your money.'
Nan's body stiflFened. It wrenched itself from Dorothy's grasp.
'I'm going to tell you,' Dorothy continued grimly, 'no matter how it sounds, that if it weren't for your money, Dick would have fallen for me.' -' ' ''
Nan said in a hushed voice, 'You must be out of your mind! You can't say such a thing to mel'
'I guess you can't hear it, when I do,' said Dorothy sadly.
Nan jumped up, vibrating. 'Of all the conceitedl Why, he didn't know about the money. I didn't even-know about the money . . . You're just—you're just crazy!'
Dorothy sat on tlie edge of the bed, looking down at her feet. Now, she began to slip out of her robe.
'Are you jealous?' Nan cried. 'Of me? Youve always had all the boy friends. Youve always been the popular one. Just because I found Dick! Dotty, please! How can you say a thing like that? You must be jealous!'
'I guess so,' said Dorothy stolidly.
'But I'm going to marry Dick! I love him! You can't stop that!'
'I guess not,' Dorothy said.
She had the robe oflE. She stepped, then, from Nan's bed
to the edge of her own. She put her knee on the bed. She said, 'Good night.'
'And Johnny's jealous, too!' Nan raged. 'Both of you want to spoil things! Well, you won't—!'
Nan flew into the bathroom, sobbing.
Dorothy lay in the cold sheets' embrace.
In a Httle while, Nan came out of the bathroom, switched oflF the hght, got into her bed.
Dorothy said into the dark, 'You can have my white dress, hon. Or anything else of mine. Except a He.'
CHAPTER 15
Johnny Sims, unable to sleep, ordered himself to think.
Very well. Two jeweled pins. Call one Nathaniel's, because it had been given to Nathaniel's wife and he had it after her death. CaU the other one Christy's.
Take Nathaniel's first. Nathaniel gave it to Kate.
Did Johnny beheve this? Kate said so. Now, after seventeen years, old Mrs. Bartee also said so. And Dick said so. Blanche said so. Yes, Johnny believed it and had beHeved it when Kate Callahan first told him. He thought she was too soft, too tolerant and yielding to have told a hard He and stuck to it for seventeen years.
So Kate had Nathaniel's pin. But this was just exactly what the jury had not beHeved, seventeen years ago.
Did it make any difference to McCauley?
That depended. There were two alternative careers for Nathaniel's pin, after Kate got it. First, it had been loaned to McCauley and was innocently in McCauley's pocket, the night of the murder. If this were the truth, a big hunk of evidence against McCauley disappeajed. A difFerence was made. Who said this? Kate said it. McCauley said it.
But, second, Nathaniel's pin had been in Kate's drawer that night, (or, at least, two nights later.) Who said this? Dick said it. Blanche said it. If true, McCauley was guilty.
What began to worry Johnny was the thought that Kate could not be sure that it wasn't in her drawer. Even McCauley might not be sure. Suppose McCauley, in his cups that night, having the pin in his pocket, intending to return it, had actually slipped it into Kate's drawer. Suppose he had wiped out the memory, an impression already fogged by alcohol, and built up his martyr role on this forgetting? (He must also have forgotten that he opened the safe, took Christy's pin, quarreled with her, hit her. But all this was psychologically possible.)
So, which alternative career of Nathaniel's pin did Johnny believe?
