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  “Among other things,” Heimrich said to the girl in black, who waited actively—who was all a tragic, waiting girl, “among other things, they won’t insinuate anything that might give anyone grounds for suit. As a practical matter, Miss Waggoner. Aside from the fact that they aren’t particularly malicious people. The reporters, I mean.”

  She sighed, deeply. Her sigh was recognition of the hopelessly obtuse. She turned away, shaking her head so that the dark hair swayed around it.

  “Unless,” Heimrich said, “there is more than I know about at the moment. Something that would involve Mr. Dale.”

  That brought her back.

  “What could there be?” she demanded. “Years ago he was sorry for Peggy. She took him in—all right, she took him in. Not the first one or the last. But he never loved her. He couldn’t have. So why would he—” She caught herself. “Do anything?” she said.

  “I don’t know,” Heimrich said. “Why are you afraid he did?”

  “I’m not,” she said. “I’m not” And she was a girl of seventeen, who might have been wearing bobby socks and saddle shoes, or whatever they were wearing this year, when they were seventeen. “Why do you say that?”

  “Now Miss Waggoner,” Heimrich said. “Everything indicates that this is a simple case. That Mr. Collins killed Miss Belford and shot himself. That nobody else was involved. So—why do you feel that Mr. Dale needs—” He hesitated. “Protection?” he said.

  “That’s ridiculous,” the girl said, resuming the superiority of youth. “He is strong. Sensitive, but strong. And gentle and kind and—” She stopped abruptly. “I suppose,” she said, “you think I’ve got a crush on him.”

  He smiled down at her, the smile answering.

  “And,” she said, “that I was jealous of that Peggy Belford.”

  He continued to look at her, smiling down at her, and saw the flicker in her eyes—the flicker which, he supposed, indicated a sudden realization that she had given herself away.

  “She was throwing herself at him,” the girl said. “Getting her claws in. Just for the fun of it.”

  “And he?”

  “He’s older,” she said. “He must be—” She paused. “About your age,” she said. Heimrich mentally blinked at that, and was somewhat taken aback. Dale was, he was pretty certain, fifteen years older. Fifteen anyway. “At that age,” Miss Chris Waggoner said, “men become susceptible. To scheming little—” She stopped with that. She did not, Heimrich supposed, wish to offend his aged ears. He wondered where she had read about the susceptibility of middle-aged men to scheming little—schemers.

  “There wasn’t anything really,” she said. “He just isn’t the sort of man who would—who wouldn’t be unkind. Even to somebody like Peggy.”

  Who wouldn’t, Heimrich supposed, tell a scheming little schemer to go peddle her papers; wouldn’t brush such a one off. Heimrich considered the girl he had seen lying dead; seen pictured. Not a girl any man, middle-aged or otherwise, would casually brush off, if offered.

  “I shouldn’t have done this at all,” Chris Waggoner said. “I’ve just—given you ideas. All the wrong ideas.”

  Which was, at least partly, true. The ideas need not, of course, be wrong.

  “Anyway,” Chris said, with resolution—and with the hoarse throb back in her young voice. “Anyway, I know where he was all yesterday afternoon. He was with me. We were—” She hesitated. Fatally. “Out in his car,” she said, with even greater resolution.

  “All right,” Heimrich said. “Then there’s nothing to worry about, is there?”

  Her eyes flickered again. But she did not return to that, at least not directly.

  “Captain Heimrich,” she said, “Brian Collins wasn’t up there. At his house. At least, part of the time he wasn’t. Did you know that?”

  Heimrich nodded his head and she said, “Oh,” and was a little deflated. “How did you know?” Heimrich said.

  She had gone to the library to look at the pictures. “There’s nothing to do here,” she said, defensively. “Not that I’m not interested in art,” she said, defending the other side of the net. She had been there when Brian Collins had come in to get his paintings.

  She had known him, apparendy?

  Two or three days before, he had had several of them up for—well, call it a swimming party. “Nobody else around here seems to have a pool,” she said, in wonderment at quaint native customs. Apparendy he had told his former wife—she supposed he and “that Peggy” must have “got together” earlier; “that Peggy” wasn’t one to let any presentable man lie around unused—to come up any time and bring any friends she wanted to. She had met Brian Collins then, which was all there was to her knowing him. It was enough to enable her to recognize him at the library, of course.

  When had he been there? Her times accorded well enough with those given by Myra Burns. “It was earlier Francis and I were out in his car,” she said, quickly, not so much covering that as drawing a slight veil across it. So, Brian Collins was away from the house for some time anyway and— She stopped.

  “And I wanted to help Francis,” she said, with a slight wail in her voice. “Not that there’s any need but—”

  “Now Miss Waggoner,” Heimrich said. “I knew Collins was away from the house for an hour or so. And that Miss Belford may have, for that period, been there alone. So you haven’t done Mr. Dale any harm. Or, anyone else. Speaking of that, do you know whether anyone else knew Mr. Collins was in town this afternoon?”

  “Anybody might have seen him,” she said. “I don’t know. We’d all come back from that bam up the river. Paul knocked it off for the afternoon. There are only a couple more scenes anyway and he wanted to shoot them in the morning. Because of the shadows.”

  “Miss Waggoner,” Heimrich said, “are you in this picture?”

  “You think he’d let me do anything with her around?” the girl said, bitterly, if unclearly. Heimrich momentarily closed his eyes.

  “Paul,” she said. “That stepfather of mine. He had it as bad as anybody. Peggyitis. You think she’d get anything but a walk-on if it weren’t for that?” Heimrich opened his eyes. “Didn’t you ever see her notices?” Chris demanded. “Not that the critics know anything and most of them hate movies anyway. You can tell that by—”

  Heimrich had, once or twice before, heard actors on the subject of critics. They can go on a long time, if left to it.

  “She got bad notices?” he said.

  “Oh,” Chris said, “they all said she was beautiful. All right, I guess she was. If you like them that way, and men seem to. Even a boy like George. But act? Figure and face of a statue by Pheidias, one of them said, and about the same mobility. And somebody else said she had two facial expressions—pout and not-pout.”

  “I take it,” Heimrich said, “that Mr. Marley—your stepfather—didn’t agree with that estimate?”

  “Captain,” Chris said, “I don’t say he’s not a good producer. Doesn’t know his job. A heel but—” She stopped. “I suppose,” she said, “you think I oughtn’t to say that? Ought to show what-you-may-call-it? Filial respect?” Her tone made the expression ridiculous. “It was my mother married him,” she said, and spoke with sudden bitterness. “Not me.”

  Heimrich waited.

  “As for Paul thinking she could act,” Chris said. She was her age, now, even if not dressed for it. “Nobody thought that.”

  “Then?”

  “What I said. Peggyitis. Everybody had to carry her. Even Georgie-Porgie.” Heimrich looked blank. “George Latham,” she said. “In the picture he’s Francis’s son and they’re both in love with Peggy the innocent milkmaid. It’s a real corny script. Either Peggyitis or she knows where somebody buried the body. Or—something.”

  A jealous child, presumably; a child unwilling to wait for growth—an impatient child. Which accounted for the dress; the too-heavy earrings. Why, Heimrich wondered, did he then feel a kind of amused tenderness toward her, a friendly sympathy? Not only
because, even now, she was nearly beautiful, and might—would almost certainly—come closer. The kid was intelligent; only the intelligent are likely, when very young, to make themselves appear so foolish.

  “Your mother’s dead?” Heimrich asked, not knowing precisely why he wondered. She had said nothing about that.

  “She’s dead,” Chris said. “Why did you ask that?” She looked up at him and for the first time there was a smile on her soft lips. “Because you think I need a mother’s guidance?”

  “Now Miss Waggoner.”

  “Maybe I do,” she said. “I come rushing at you. All protective and—anyway, all protective. And what comes of it? You pump me dry, don’t you?”

  “Have I?”

  He smiled at her.

  “As dry,” she said. “All the same, it isn’t fair for Francis to—to be hurt. She wasn’t worth it.” He looked down at her. “Oh,” she said, “I know she’s dead and—” She stopped. She said, “Well,” and turned and started toward the taproom.

  “Miss Waggoner,” Heimrich said and she stopped. “You said you were having a drink,” he said. “Of what?”

  For a moment she was, again, a woman of the world, in black dress, haughty in the face of impertinence. And then, with nothing intermediate, she grinned at him, grinned like an imp, not caring how she looked.

  “I don’t like you,” she said, with a kind of pleased delight in her voice. “Not at all. Coke. Coke. Daddy.”

  And went.

  “I don’t,” Sergeant Forniss remarked, “get them. Was she up to something?”

  “Several things, possibly,” Heimrich said. “Including the things she said she was up to. About Dale. We’ll have to talk to Dale, of course.”

  “To everybody,” Forniss agreed. “Only—where is it going to get us? Because if we can’t find something the matter with the way it looks, with the physical setup, where are we? Because no D.A.’s going to buck the obvious.”

  “I know,” Heimrich said.

  “Anybody else,” Forniss said. “Saying there is anybody, would have to come and dangle his paws and say, ‘Please, I did it.’ ”

  “I know, Charlie,” Heimrich said. “It’s all very difficult.”

  V

  Francis Dale took it that the police were not entirely satisfied. Francis Dale was a tall lean man, with a compact brown face and crinkles at the corners of his eyes. His eyes were blue. There was gray becomingly at his temples. He wore a brown goatee. He sat, in polo shirt and walking shorts, on a sofa in The Suite, the capital letters being applied, when it was mentioned, by the Old Stone Inn. He looked at Heimrich speculatively and pulled at the beard. “Damn thing itches,” he said. “Why aren’t you satisfied, captain?”

  Francis Dale had a deep voice, and used it with care. He had strong brown hands and, beard pulled sufficiently, used one of them to lift a long glass. He said, “Won’t change your mind?” and smiled pleasantly. He was, Heimrich knew—everybody knew—in his middle fifties; he looked it and didn’t look it.

  He wouldn’t, Heimrich said, want to put it quite so definitely. There was routine to be gone through. “Just a few routine questions, m’lady,” Dale said, in a voice suddenly very British. “I played that role once, a long time ago. At the Empire. Beautiful house, the Empire. M’lady turned out to be guilty as hell, as I recall it.”

  He was relaxed, sipped at his drink.

  “I suppose,” he said, “you’ve got reporters in your hair?”

  “Naturally,” Heimrich said. “Considering.”

  Dale nodded. He said, “It’s a sad thing, captain. She was such a very pretty child. Was living with such—enthusiasm. A bit too much, perhaps. At least it—” He paused and sipped and appeared to reflect. “I found it so,” he said. “During our brief association. During the time I was playing the rather inert role of steppingstone. I assume that’s what you’re interested in, captain? If you think Collins didn’t kill her? Did I? Overcome by—by youthful passion?” He smiled, pleasantly. He shook his handsome head. He said, “No, captain.”

  “Did you see Mr. Collins in the village this afternoon?” Heimrich asked him. “That’s the sort of routine I’m interested in at the moment.”

  “No,” Dale said. “If that’s what you really want to know. If you want to know where I was most of the afternoon, which I imagine is the point, I was here. From about three until around six. Sleeping, most of the time. Zersk is a great man for dawn shots. With people in them, unfortunately. Got back here around one. Had a couple of drinks and lunch with Paul—Paul Marley, that is—and young George. Talked about tomorrow’s schedule, after which, thank God, I can shave.”

  “Not,” Heimrich said, “out driving with Miss Waggoner?”

  Dale put his drink down on the cocktail table.

  “Now what,” he said, “ever put that in—” And stopped. “Oh my God,” he said. “Chris, again. From babies with—” Again he stopped.

  “Crushes?” Heimrich said, when Dale did not go on. And Dale nodded, slowly.

  “She is,” Dale said, “a very sweet child. Very sweet and very young and very foolish. I could be her father, captain. If I had been sufficiently precocious, her grandfather. Assuming an offspring equally impetuous. Cradles are safe from me, captain.” He looked at Heimrich and narrowed his eyes slightly and then, suddenly, smiled. “And don’t,” he said, “cite Peggy Belford. I doubt if our Peggy ever had a cradle.” He sobered; his face changed, became another face. “The poor kid,” he said. “I keep forgetting, somehow. Chris was—what? Protecting me from your evil suspicions?”

  “Partly,” Heimrich said. “Partly, she wanted me to gag the press. She seems to think that’s possible. So that your name would not be—the word she used was ‘blazened.’ ”

  “She had on that black dress?” Dale said. “And the deep dark voice?”

  Heimrich nodded his head.

  “The baby,” Dale said. “Of course, she’ll get over it. They all do.” He smiled then, and seemed to smile at himself. “More’s the pity,” he added, as if to himself. “An occupational hazard, captain. And, at the same time, part of the—well, of the operation. The company’s. But, mine too. I don’t deny that. Box office is as the female does. Or, dreams. And probably you think I’m quite—insufferable. An old goat. At the moment, with beard to match.”

  He had not been looking at Heimrich as he spoke. Now, abruptly, he did.

  “Now Mr. Dale,” Heimrich said. “Why should I?”

  “The word’s been used,” Dale said, and now he grinned at Heimrich. “By husbands, from time to time. Husbands of women I’d never met. What’s come over them, do you suppose? Why don’t they pick on somebody their age? They used to. But, I can’t complain. Several of my contemporaries can’t complain, either.” He drank again. “In this case,” he said, “the case of our little Chris, I’ve been doing what I could. Because of one thing and another. Gertrude’s death, for one thing. And—Chris is real. A real girl, here and now. Not somebody who says, ‘I’ll treasure it forever, Mr. Dale,’ and shoves an autograph book.”

  When he quoted “somebody” he was, for that instant, in voice, almost in appearance (which was absurd) a teen-age girl with book and pencil.

  It could not, Heimrich thought, be contended that Francis Dale was not, among other things, an actor. Tall and lean and handsome, and an actor too. So—

  “What have you been doing, Mr. Dale?” Heimrich asked and, on being looked at blankly, added, “To discourage Miss Waggoner. If that was what you meant.”

  “Oh,” Dale said. “Paying attention to Peggy. Letting Chris see that I thought she was a child and—” And he stopped. He said, “My God!”

  “Making her jealous,” Heimrich said. “She is, Mr. Dale. Or—was.”

  “Captain,” Dale said. “This man Collins shot Peggy. And killed himself. That’s—all over the place. Why aren’t you people satisfied with that?”

  He had come full circle. But, where he had seemed only a little amused before,
even when he proposed himself as a suspect, he was not at all amused now. “She’s a child,” Dale said, angrily. “Got childish notions, dramatizes things. But—a child. A sweet child.”

  “Now Mr. Dale,” Heimrich said. “You’re jumping at things. Who was the Gertrude you mentioned? Chris’s mother?”

  “I don’t see—” Dale said and shrugged and said, “All right. Maybe you know what you’re after. Chris’s mother. A damn good actress in her day, which wasn’t far from mine. A damned nice person. I’ll never know why she did it.”

  “Did what?”

  “Took an overdose about eighteen months ago,” Dale said. “There was enough about it in the papers.” He considered. “In the Los Angeles papers, anyway,” he said. “Gertrude Fletcher?”

  Heimrich shook his head.

  “Her real name,” Dale said. “Gives you an idea how good she was to get where she did with a name like that. Then she married Waggoner and retired and had Chris and Waggoner died. And then, seven-eight years ago, she married Paul. And did a comeback for one picture and got nice notices—nice enough—and then a year and a half ago—” He shrugged. “It was a damn bad thing for Chris,” he said. “Her mother meant a lot to her. And she doesn’t—” He stopped. He said this was beside the point.

  “Like her stepfather,” Heimrich said. “She told me. He’s a good deal younger than Chris’s mother was, I’d imagine.”

  “Fifteen years or thereabouts,” Dale said. “One of our boy wonders.”

  “Is he?”

  “Good at his job? Very.”

  “Mr. Dale,” Heimrich said, “was Miss Belford a good actress?”

  He was told he asked the damnedest unrelated things. He was asked whether that was a question Chris had raised.

  “Yes,” Heimrich said, and waited.

  “What difference does it make now?”

  “Now Mr. Dale,” Heimrich said. “I haven’t any idea, really. Was she?”