To her surprise, when she woke, it was quite late, going on six, and she began at once to understand from a hollow ache in her stomach that she was in need of food, if not actually hungry. She had another shower, a quick one, and pulled on a shirt and a pair of shorts and went downstairs to the kitchen, where she found cold roast beef for a sandwich and cold milk to drink with it. She would have preferred beer to the milk, but one beer generally led to several, as she knew from experience, and she needed a clear head to think with. After eating the beef sandwich and drinking the cold milk, she went with her clear head out onto the back terrace. The day had cooled off, and there was a soft breeze, and she sat there in the breeze and began trying to think, but it was rather futile, all thoughts coming to nothing new, and then suddenly she remembered that tomorrow night was the night of the meeting of the discussion group, at which she and Rose Pogue were to discuss Zoroaster, and she realized that it would be absolutely impossible for her to go. It would be necessary for her to tell Rose at once, so that Rose could plan to do everything as best she could alone. It would be placing Rose in a difficult position, of course, but, then, Rose was intellectual and ingenious, and would manage very well to fill in Sid’s time with only a little advance notice.
Getting up, Sid went inside to the telephone in the hall and dialed Rose’s number.
“Hello,” she said. “Is that you, Rose?”
“Yes,” Rose said. “It’s Sid, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is,” Sid said, “and I should have called you sooner, but it simply didn’t enter my mind.”
“Where on earth have you been all day? I’ve tried and tried without success to reach you.”
“I’ve been busy investigating things, but I must say that I haven’t gotten much of anywhere with it.”
“Well, darling, I was simply thunderstruck when I read in the papers what had happened to Gid, and I only wanted to say that if there is the slightest thing I can do to help, you mustn’t hesitate to call on me.”
“There is something, actually, and that’s really what I’ve called about. I’ve just remembered the discussion group tomorrow night, and I can’t be there. Would you mind doing it alone?”
“I won’t say that I wouldn’t mind ordinarily, but under the circumstances it can hardly be helped. With Gid in jail, you can’t be expected to engage effectively in a discussion of Zoroaster.”
“It’s very kind of you, Rose. I’m sorry to leave you in such a fix.”
“No, no, darling. You are not to let it distress you in the least. You already have enough on your mind as it is.”
“Thanks enormously, Rose. You’re so clever about such things, I’m sure you’ll manage beautifully without me.”
“Wait a minute. Don’t hang up. Were you about to hang up?”
“I was about to, yes.”
“I wanted to ask you if matters will be cleared up shortly. Do you think so?”
“At first I thought so, but now I’m not quite so optimistic.”
“Surely he didn’t do it?”
“Surely not.”
“What on earth could have made him go to the park?”
“He went to say good-by to someone he had known well. It was perfectly understandable and perfectly innocent.”
“Do you think so? That’s comforting, at least. I have been told that Beth Thatcher was quite attractive.”
“I only saw her dead, and she was beautiful.”
“How unusual. So often dead people aren’t. Wasn’t it the night you were over here that he went to see her?”
“Yes.”
“Darling, did you know he was going?”
“I didn’t know it in advance, because he didn’t know it himself until after I had left. He told me he had gone when I returned home.”
“Really? One always wonders about such things, doesn’t one? I mean it could be either a sign of innocence or an exceptionally bold bit of deception. I will say, however, that you are being very steadfast and loyal, and I admire you for it.”
“I’m not being steadfast and loyal at all. I am only lonely and wanting Gid home. He isn’t so much, perhaps, as men go, but he’s mine, and I want to keep him.”
“Of course, darling. If that’s what you want, I’m sure I want it for you. And you are not to worry about Zoroaster. Not for an instant.”
“Thanks again, Rose. Good-by.”
On the back terrace, sitting and thinking with a clear head in the cool breeze, she reviewed once more her conversation with the Thatchers, but the prospects for anything enlightening coming from it grew dimmer and dimmer all the time, and in fact it was more confusing than otherwise, for it left her wondering, in the first place, how anyone as simple-minded as Wilson had ever managed to make so much money, and in the second, why in hell Beth Thatcher, who had called on the telephone about nine-thirty, had failed to pick up fifteen thousand dollars at nine when it had been agreed upon and arranged.
Arriving at no answers to these puzzlers, she began to think then about the conversation between Beth and me as I had related it, to see if anything significant could be detected there that had heretofore escaped detection. She had a good memory for details, and she began at the beginning, with the ringing of the phone, and went over them all carefully once, after which she began to go over them again.
The God-damn treacherous cicadas were noisy in the trees. In the pale light, the moon was pale in the sky. In the backyard across the hedge, Jack Handy was watering the grass and making comments in a loud voice to Mrs. Jack Handy, who was apparently somewhere
