The Brass Bed

17

There were three of them in the beginning, and they spent quite a long time in the garage. Eventually, however, one of them came into the house and through the kitchen and into the living room from the hall. He was the one who was obviously in charge and had come through the house and out the back way to the garage originally, after learning that Sid was there, while the other two had waited in the police car in the drive and had gone directly to the garage from there without coming into the house at all. His name was Jason, the one who came in. His first name was Henry, but we referred to him as Jason only, and he was a lieutenant of detectives. He was short and broad and looked very powerful physically, but he looked at you mildly, and he spoke politely. He took his hat off inside the house and kept turning it around and around by the brim in his hands.

“I hope you don’t mind if I ask some questions,” he said. “You understand, of course, that it is necessary.”

“Yes,” I said, “of course.”

He stopped turning his hat around and laid it on a chair and took a little notebook out of one pocket and looked around through the others until he found a short pencil. He opened the notebook and held the pencil poised above it but, as I recall, he never made a note about anything that was said, and I suppose the notebook and pencil were only parts of a habit, just as the hat was.

“First of all,” he said, “who found him?”

“It was I who found him,” Jolly said, “but before I answer any more questions I would like to be assured that you are actually a policeman.”

He looked surprised for a second, but no longer, and he held the notebook and pencil together in one hand while he got out identification and showed it to her and put it away again with the other.

“I assure you that I am actually a policeman,” he said.

“Well,” Jolly said, “I was uncertain because you are not wearing a uniform.”

“Not all policemen wear uniforms,” he said.

“No?” Jolly said. “I was of the opinion that all policemen were required to wear them.”

I was of the opinion myself that she hadn’t been of any such opinion at all, and I couldn’t understand why she was immediately needling him this way, and it’s the truth that I never understood half the things about her.

“Now,” he said, “what time was it that you found him?”

“As to that, I’m not sure,” Jolly said. She frowned a little and appeared to be thinking. “I believe that it was around ten o’clock. Do you think it must have been around ten o’clock, Felix? I called you very shortly afterward, and perhaps you can remember when it was that I called.”

“That’s right,” I said. “It was about ten.”

He turned toward me but didn’t look at me. He was looking instead at the watch on his wrist.

“You mean that you were not here when he was discovered?”

“No,” I said. “Jolly called me, and I came right over, but I was not here.”

“You should feel honored. Usually when someone finds a body, they call the police first, or at least first thing after a doctor, and after that they may call a friend if they are frightened and feel the need of company or something. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if you turned out to be the first person who ever got called into a thing like this ahead of a doctor or the police.”

It was sarcasm, of course, but it wasn’t said like sarcasm, but very mildly and in all apparent innocence, and the funny thing was, it gave it a kind of deadliness that it wouldn’t otherwise have had.

He turned back to Jolly.

“Why didn’t you call a doctor?” he said.

“Well,” Jolly said, “Felix asked me the same thing and he seemed to think it was important, but I must say that I can’t see the importance. Sid was quite dead, and I knew he was dead because I felt him and all and made sure of it, and I could see absolutely no sense in calling a doctor to look at someone who was dead.”

He watched her and nodded slowly and seemed very impressed with what he saw and heard.

“Logical,” he said. “Strictly logical. I hope you had as good a reason for not calling the police.”

“Certainly,” she said. “One does not think of the police all the time or when just anything happens, and it did not occur to me that the police were necessary in the case of an accident.”

“In accidents like this one,” he said, “they’re necessary.”

He looked down at the little notebook as if he were reading what he’d written there, but he hadn’t really written anything at all to read, and pretty soon he looked up again.

“Why don’t you just tell me about it?” he said. “How he happened to be in the garage and all about it.”

“I’ll be happy to do that,” Jolly said, “and it all started last night when I was out with Sid and Fran.”

“Who’s Fran?”

“Fran Tyler. She’s a friend of mine, and we often go out places together.”

“All right. Go ahead.”

“Well, we went to Sylvester’s, and it just happened that we met Felix and Harvey there, who were celebrating the end of school for the summer.”

“Who’s Harvey?”

“Harvey Griffin,” I said. “He teaches mathematics at the college.”

“Oh. I see. What happened next?”

“Sylvester’s was extremely dull,” Jolly said, “in spite of being expensive and having Gloria Finch, so everyone wanted to go somewhere else, except Harvey right at the beginning, and Sid suggested that we go out to Prince Sam’s Hallelujah House. It was decided to go, and we went, and owing to the fact that Prince Sam makes his drinks exceptionally strong, everyone got somewhat drunk, especially Sid, who had passed out when it was time to leave. Harvey and Felix and Fran left in Harvey’s car, and I took Sid in mine because he was rather a bother at the moment and more my responsibility than anyone else’s. On the way here, he became revived by the cool air and sat up and talked quite sensibly about several things. He wanted to come in with me, but I wouldn’t permit it, and so he said that he would just drive the car into the garage for me and walk on to his own place, which is not far. I told him that it was not necessary to drive the car into the garage, but he was bound to do it, and he did. I went on upstairs to bed, and all I know about it from then on is how I found him this morning when I came down and went out to the garage for the car, and the truth is, I was rather annoyed because he hadn’t left it in the drive where I could get to it without all the trouble.”

“You were up rather early, weren’t you, after such a big night?”

“Not at all. I recover very quickly from such things.”

“I wish I did. Do you mind telling me where you were going this morning?”

“I was going to pick up Fran, and we were going downtown and have lunch and look at things in shops. However, since she has not called to find out why I haven’t arrived, I assume she is still sleeping and wouldn’t have wanted to anyhow. Perhaps Harvey is with her. Do you think Harvey may be with her, Felix?”

“I don’t think so,” I said, “but he may be.”

Jason said abruptly, “Why did he leave the engine running?”

“Felix also asked me that,” Jolly said, “and I couldn’t say, and I still can’t, because it is apparent that I have no way of knowing. However, he was quite drunk, as I explained, and it is entirely possible that he did not know precisely what he was doing or not doing.”

“That’s something to think about, I guess, and that’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve been thinking about the times I’ve got out of a car and left the engine running because I’d had too much to drink, and so far as I can remember there weren’t any. It seems to me that turning off the engine of a car is such a habitual thing that it would be done reflexively without thinking, even by a drunk.”

“I can only point out that in Sid’s case it wasn’t.”

“You’re right. It wasn’t. I can’t deny that. Another thing I’m thinking about, though, is that you said he revived and talked sensibly on the way home.”

“Oh, that. Well, it’s a fact that he revived, but you are surely aware of how that often occurs with someone who has passed out, and I admit that it has even happened to me a time or two. What I mean is, you come around and feel pretty good and ready to go, and then all of a sudden you simply pass out again very quickly and probably do not wake up again for a long time.”

“I see. You are certainly very sharp about these things, Mrs. Craig, and I’m thankful that you are willing to help me out this way. Let’s see now. We concede that he got out of the car without turning off the engine. He then goes around behind the car and pulls the overhead door down and fastens it securely. After that, he immediately passes out again and lies down on the floor and unfortunately is killed from breathing carbon monoxide gas. The car keeps on running until all the fuel is used up and then quits. Is that the way you think it must have happened?”

“I think it is quite obviously the way it happened.”

“It does seem like it, doesn’t it? I’m a little bothered, however, by how he pulled down that heavy door and even took the trouble to fasten it and then collapsed immediately. If I hadn’t seen the evidence of it in this case, I wouldn’t have thought something like that was at all probable, or even possible.”

“Sid was peculiar. All sorts of odd things happened to him.”

“Well, that may explain it, of course. I suppose it might have happened to someone who was peculiar.”

“In addition, perhaps the exertion of pulling down the door precipitated his collapse. Do you think that’s possible?”

“I don’t know. It’s something else to think about, anyhow, and I will admit that you have given me more to think about than anyone else that I can remember from a long time back.”

He was silent, again reading the blank page in his little notebook. It took him longer than before, there now being a greater accumulation of nothing, and it was at least a minute before he raised his eyes.

“I hope you don’t think I’m unsympathetic,” he said. “It seems to me that you have been having more than your share of trouble lately.”

This was something I had been expecting and waiting for, and I’m certain that Jolly had too, and I thought that it might have a bad effect on her, but it didn’t. Not visibly, anyway.

“Because of Kirby’s drowning and all?” she said.

“Yes. I read about it in the papers, of course. It must have been a pretty bad experience for you, and now this thing on top of it. I will have to say that I admire the way you are accepting it. I hope you don’t get any foolish ideas that you are bad luck or something. You understand what I mean. Having two men so close to you die almost in your presence in so short an interval. Some people would begin to think they brought bad luck or some such nonsense, and I hope you don’t get to thinking anything like that.”

“Not at all. So far as I can see, I am in no way responsible, and I am not inclined to blame myself, however bad I may feel.”

“That’s the spirit. I knew I could depend on you to be sensible. I imagine that you and your husband were still in love with each other, weren’t you?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I don’t want to embarrass you, of course. What I should have asked is, were you amicable?”

“Frankly, I am of the opinion that you shouldn’t have asked anything about it at all, because it clearly has nothing to do with Sid’s dying in my garage. In spite of that, however, I am willing to tell you that Kirby and I were amicable enough in our own way.”

“Your own way? Was that different from the usual way?”

“I don’t know what the usual way is, and I doubt that there is such a thing, because I am sure that everyone is anything in a way that is a little different from other ways. As for Kirby, he was very virile, and frequently offensive, and it was not long ago that he hit me in the eye and blacked it.”

“But you were amicable in your own way, even though he hit you in the eye and blacked it.”

“It is necessary to be tolerant in such matters. As anyone can tell you, he was almost always hitting someone in the eye or something.”

“I admire tolerance. If there’s anyone in the world I admire, it’s the person who is willing to allow the other fellow his idiosyncrasies. ” Jason turned his head and looked levelly at me. “As I understand it, you are merely a friend. Is that so?”

“Yes,” I said, “that’s so.”

“You must be a pretty special friend, as a matter of fact. I’m sure a person who gets called in a case like this even before the doctor and the police must be pretty special.”

“All friends are special,” Jolly said, “but Felix is more special than most.”

“Yes. I thought that must be the way of it. And a special friend is very good to have around at certain times, I’ll admit that. Now a little more about Mr. Pollock. Sid, as you call him. Since you have not mentioned them or called them, I assume that he has no relatives in the city.”

“No. So far as I know, he has only a mother and father who live in a small town named Clearvale. It’s about a hundred miles northeast of here.”

“I know the town.”

He wrote the name of it in the little notebook, which was the first and only thing he wrote during all the time we talked, and then closed the notebook and put it into a pocket with the pencil.

“I want to thank you for answering my questions,” he said, “and chances are I’ll want you to answer others later that I’ve forgotten to ask now. In the meanwhile, I’ll go back out to the garage and see that things are progressing in order.”

He turned and went out into the hall, and a moment later we heard the kitchen screen door bang behind him, and another moment later a car came into the drive and stopped. In her chair, Jolly smiled at me quietly, but I was unable to smile back.

“In my judgment, I got through that very well,” she said. “The truth is, I am quite proud of myself.”

“Yes, you did,” I said. “You were in perfect control of the situation.”

“Do you think so? When it came down to it, I was not frightened after all.”

“I could see that you weren’t.”

She sat looking at her hands and smiling at them. After a while the car that had stopped in the drive started up again and left, and I knew that it had come for Sid and got him.

I left then, and Jolly went silently upstairs — to her brass bed.