The Swimming Pool Read online

I had no idea what she had in her mind that day: that The Birches might be a haven sometime, or even a hiding-place. I prattled on in my innocence, while my bad angel patted me on the shoulder for being a good little fool, and Judith ate fresh mountain trout and listened.

  We were better friends after that. Not intimate. Certainly not sisterly. But I began to realize that her early coldness had nothing to do with me. She was simply absorbed in herself and her problem, whatever it was. Because there was a problem. She would sit for hours staring out the car window but seeing nothing. And once or twice I saw her shiver, although the train was warm.

  “We used to say that meant somebody walking over our graves,” I offered once when she had been shaking for some time.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake!” she snapped at me. “Why, don’t you read or pick up some man in the club car? Or does Ridge insist you watch me all the time?”

  But she had lost all her color, and for a moment I thought she was going to faint.

  Reno was not too bad. We were on a ranch outside of town, and I learned to ride a horse and like it. Judith rode, too, but also she spent a lot of time in town, she said at the movies, but I had an idea she was gambling. It wasn’t my affair, of course. I saw very little of her. When I did, she was usually surrounded by cowboys or the men who were guests at the ranch.

  I have the carbon of a letter to Ridge which I wrote on my portable after we had been in Reno a couple of weeks.

  Dear Ridge: We are comfortably settled and getting along nicely. Judith is fine, sleeping well and looking much her old self again. Apparently it was New York which did not agree with her, as she improved steadily all the way west. I do not see much of her, however, and it looks as though I am here under false pretenses. She seems to feel entirely safe, as I am sure she is.

  Personally I wonder whether she was merely tired to the point of exhaustion before we came here, and so got some sort of delusion of persecution. You might ask her psychiatrist that. As things are I am rather like a third leg here so far as she is concerned.

  Better burn this letter, and it’s not necessary to reply. She knows you sent me and why, and I think it amuses her, which shows, I think, how normal she is.

  Yours, Lois.

  I gathered that the divorce was being arranged, but she never mentioned it, nor did I. And whatever purpose the shabby disguise had served, it was not resumed after we left Chicago. She broke out in gay little dresses and evening gowns, hired a car and drove it recklessly, and on the proper day and surrounded by assorted males threw her lovely platinum wedding ring into the Truckee River and proceeded to pack for the East.

  It was a few days before we left that she came into my room to say she had decided to stay at The Birches until she made up her mind what to do.

  “The Birches!” I said with a sinking heart. “Why on earth The Birches? You never liked it there, and you’d go crazy, after what you’re accustomed to.”

  “If you remember, a part of it is mine,” she said coldly. “I’ve never asked any rent from you and Phil, nor has Anne. But I certainly have the right to live there if I want to.”

  “I thought you were going abroad,” I said in a sort of desperation.

  “I need to be quiet for a while,” she said. “I can make other plans later. I’m better now. Thank God I don’t have to live up to the Chandler virtues anymore.”

  I stared at her, but she apparently meant it, so I let it go.

  “How’s the Bechstein?” she inquired. “I need to catch up with my music.”

  “It hasn’t been tuned for years,” I said. “Now look, Judith,” I added desperately, “we simply can’t have you at The Birches. Most of it is closed. We only use part of it. And I write. I have to earn money, and I need quiet to do it.”

  “Aren’t you forgetting Ridge’s little contribution?” she said nastily. “That ought to help.”

  But I still didn’t believe her. Not until she told me she had wired Phil to have the Bechstein put in order. The immediate result was a telegram to me from Phil.

  Don’t understand but strenuously object. Paying small boys in neighborhood to plant a few skunks, etc. Insist this must not happen.

  A day or two later there was an air-mail letter from Anne along the same lines:

  What in the world is this idea of Judith coming to The Birches? She was always a troublemaker, and this divorce certainly shows she is still unstable. I am sure Ridge would let her have the apartment if she wanted it, and I simply cannot see her in the country. You may have servant trouble, too. Helga never liked her, and you don’t want to lose her.

  I have not talked to Ridge since, but as I told you there is something queer behind this divorce. Do you think she is in trouble? And if so, why Reno? I have asked around among the gang she played with, but they say no other man.

  I have been worried about you, too, Lois. How can you write with her around all the time? If she wants the old Bechstein, let her have it. Give her anything else she wants. But for heaven’s sake don’t have her at The Birches. She will drive you crazy.

  Anne was the practical member of the family, as well as the oldest, and I read her letter carefully. A solidly built woman and entirely domestic, she was only four years older than Judith, and consequently knew her better than I did. But the divorce came up about that time, and I saw very little of Judith until we started east.

  So far as I know, however, she had been perfectly well. As usual she had two or three men see her to the train, and she looked beautiful and barely thirty that day. I remember we had two boxes of flowers, three of candy, and a bottle of Chanel No. 5 to help us survive the trip, as well as innumerable magazines and books. I stood on the platform in an effulgence of reflected glory as the train pulled out, the men waving, Judith smiling, and myself trying to hold the accumulated tribute.

  Then, when it was all over, I turned to follow Judith into the car, and saw she was unable to move.

  She was standing there, holding to a rail, and no amount of makeup would hide the fact that she was practically fainting. I tried to hold her, but she kept sliding out of my grasp. Then a tall man standing behind us realized the situation and together we got her to her drawing-room. She really fainted then, passing out in her seat like a light, and the tall man stood in the doorway, looking uneasy.

  “Think I’d better get a doctor?” he asked.

  “No. She’ll be all right. She’s done it before. But thank you, anyhow.”

  He disappeared then, and a moment later Judith opened her eyes. I had a glass of water in my hand by that time, but I had been startled enough to be irritable.

  “For heaven’s sake, what happened to you?” I asked. “One minute you’re all smiles, waving to that posse out there, and the next you’re going to pieces on me. What was it?”

  She sat up then and ran her hands through her hair.

  “I just got dizzy,” she said shortly. “And take that water away. I’m all right. Stop staring at me with your mouth open. You look like an idiot.”

  I shall always believe that what Phil called Judith’s agoraphobia—which he explains as fear of the market place, or her idée fixe, to use his own words—began that day. I only know that she behaved very strangely. For one thing, the moment she recovered from her faint she insisted on having the door locked, only permitting me to open it to let the porter bring in fresh linen for her berth, and so far as I know she never left her bed until we were drawing into New York.

  Even I was shut out, and I could only get in by rapping twice and then once, and after that first day she never let the porter in at all. The dining-car waiter didn’t matter—she ate almost nothing, and I took in her tray. But the porter did. His job devolved on me. He would give me the fresh sheets, with a queer look on his face, and I would have the backbreaking job of making up the berth.

  “Lady have a bad scare about something?” he said once.

  “She’s a nervous case,” I explained lamely.

  He showed beautiful w
hite teeth in a smile. “Sometimes Reno do that to them,” he said. “Other times they act like they very happy. Never can tell.”

  I was puzzled, but also I was sorry for her. The flowers faded. The candy and magazines were not even opened. She simply lay there, looking like death and refusing to explain anything.

  “Why don’t you tell me, Judith?” I would say. “You’re afraid of something, aren’t you?”

  She scowled at me. “Can’t I be sick without you bothering me?”

  “I don’t think you are sick. You’re scared. All this locking yourself in is silly. What on earth can happen to you on a train?”

  “People have been murdered on trains,” she said, and shivered.

  That was as much as I got out of her on the trip. I sat in my compartment next door and tried to puzzle the thing out. Whatever had happened had been as the train was ready to move out. There had been the group of waving, grinning men, piling her arms with tribute, a red-capped porter or two, and the train conductor. A taxi or two had driven up at the last minute, but their passengers were two laughing women and an elderly one who walked with a cane.

  To save my life I could see nothing menacing in that departure of ours. I wondered if the trouble was some passenger on the train, and the second day I began to look it over. It was a long train, and if there was anything sinister about any of the passengers I could not discover it. All I saw were tired and bored people, the women reading or trying to doze, and none of the men with what my detective-story reading told me should be the bulge at the left shoulder that indicated a holster and a gun.

  Whatever Judith thought, I could not see Nemesis in wrinkled suits, crying babies, and tired-looking women who had left Reno and their former lives for the unknown future that lay ahead.

  I daresay any train east from that Nevada city carries its own load of drama, but I had no idea it was carrying ours.

  Chapter 5

  IT WAS NOT UNTIL the second day that I saw again the man who had helped me with Judith. My legs were tired from my search of the train, and so, when I reached the club car, I sat down for a cigarette and a drink.

  He was across a table from me, and when I searched for a match he leaned over and offered me a light.

  “How is the lady?” he inquired.

  “She’s better, thanks,” I said. And that was all for the moment. He was a big man, broad shouldered and powerful, wearing dark glasses with shell rims, and with heavy hair going gray over his ears. There is something disarming to me about gray hair. It shouts respectability, for one thing, although he was not old; in his early forties, perhaps. And beyond asking about Judith he let me alone until I had had my highball. Then he turned and said something about the scenery. As I had had a bellyful of scenery I merely nodded, but he seemed to be lonely, for he kept on.

  “In Reno for the usual reasons?” he inquired.

  “I’m not married,” I said coldly.

  He was not easily snubbed however.

  “I’ve seen you going through the train,” he said. “Not looking for someone, are you?”

  “I’ve been looking for Nemesis,” I said shortly, and he laughed.

  “And why,” he said, “should a pretty young woman like yourself be expecting Nemesis?”

  It was the first time I realized he was Irish. Probably only Irish descent, but it was there, in the turn of phrase, in the quick uptake and the laughter. But I had an idea he was watching me through those dark glasses, and for just a moment I wondered if it was he who had terrified Judith. It was impossible, of course. He had been behind her, and she was staring out when it happened.

  “I don’t know,” I said vaguely. “Something made my sister faint yesterday. I thought perhaps she saw something. Or somebody. She’s really quite strong. It bothers me.”

  He nodded. “I have an idea I’ve seen her somewhere,” he said. “Either her or her picture.”

  “Probably her picture,” I said with some bitterness. “The New York columnists use it a lot.”

  “They would” he agreed. “She’s very good-looking. I think I remember now. She’s Mrs. Ridgely Chandler, isn’t she?”

  “Judith Chandler. Yes. You were very kind. I meant to thank you.”

  He ignored that. He seemed to be thinking.

  “What do you think frightened her?” he said. “Or are you imagining something? After all, the strain of getting a divorce must be something.”

  I didn’t tell him that you could have put Judith’s strain about her divorce in an eye and not even blinked. It had gone through her like a dose of castor oil. But I did intimate it.

  “In this case it was practically painless,” I told him. “No, it wasn’t that.”

  “Sure of it, are you?”

  “Positive.”

  He looked thoughtful.

  “Then why not let me look over the train for you?” he said. “It’s more in my line than yours, anyhow. And if you don’t object to meeting me in the diner tonight about seven o’clock I’ll tell you what I find if anything.”

  He did not explain his line, and I did not ask him. But I found myself liking him. Also I was lonely and feeling rather forlorn, so I agreed at once. He took me back to Judith’s drawing-room, and stood by while I gave the customary raps. He smiled down at me.

  “Like something out of a book, isn’t it?” he said.

  I was annoyed.

  “I wouldn’t put anything so silly in a book of mine.”

  He looked startled. “You mean you write books?”

  “I’ve done one or two,” I said modestly. But he only stared at me.

  “Good God!” he muttered, and left abruptly.

  I was in two minds after that about having dinner with him. To say I was annoyed would be a considerable understatement. On the other hand, I couldn’t very well go into the diner and show my resentment by sitting by myself, and I ended by putting on fresh makeup and what I hoped was a highly literary expression.

  It did not seem to impress him. He was waiting for me at a table for two, with a couple of cocktails ready and a beaming smile. He seated me with considerable manner.

  “I hope you like martinis,” he said. “It seems like a good idea to drink to a train as innocent as this one.”

  “You found nobody?”

  “A couple of con boys. I wouldn’t worry about them.”

  In a way it was a relief, but I found myself eyeing him curiously. He did not look like a policeman. I was sure he was not flatfooted, he was well dressed, and his hands were well cared for. His diction, too, was good. In a rather rugged way he was good-looking, but his face was strong rather than handsome.

  “You seem to know a lot about that sort of thing,” I said tentatively.

  “I should. I’m a cop myself. Or I was,” he added. “I’ve been in the army. Got knocked about a bit. All right now, however.”

  Perhaps it was the cocktail. Or perhaps there is something about a train trip which is rather like being on an ocean liner. You make contacts, but because you know they are brief, or perhaps you are bored, you talk rather more than you should. So within an hour or so I knew that my big friend’s name was Terrence O’Brien. “With two r’s, my mother insisted. God rest her soul.” That he was usually called “Irish,” that he had been a lieutenant of Homicide in the New York Police Department, had left it for the South Pacific during the war, and having inherited “a little something” was now at a loose end.

  “Thinking of getting a small place out of town,” he said. “Maybe raise a few chickens. That sort of thing.”

  I wondered just what he meant by being knocked about a bit. If ever a man looked in the pink of condition, he did.

  “You’ll miss your work, won’t you?” I asked.

  “Maybe. Maybe not. I have a lot of reading to do. I got thrown out of college.” He grinned. “In a moment of exhilaration it seemed like a good thing to take the pants off the campus policeman,” he said. “Which is funny, because I went on the force myself later on. I
’d always wanted to be a cop,” he added. “I suppose most kids do.”

  But he reverted to Judith almost immediately.

  “You can tell her for me there’s nobody dangerous on this train,” he said. “Or, on second thought, just leave me out of it. It won’t hurt her to shut herself away for a while. And by the way, I don’t know your name. Maybe I should, if you write.”

  “You don’t like writing women, do you?”

  “Never knew any,” he said promptly.

  But he didn’t laugh. He looked appalled when I told him my name and that I wrote crime stories.

  “Don’t tell me,” he said. “I know. The guy is a private eye. He keeps a fifth of Scotch in a drawer of his desk, he’s blackjacked and then gets up and goes about his business instead of being taken to a hospital where he belongs, and he solves the crime when the regular cops are running in circles.”

  In spite of myself I had to laugh.

  “Not quite,” I said. “My detective is a woman.”

  He looked really disgusted then, but as dinner arrived at that moment we let the subject drop. Nevertheless, I felt during the meal that he was quietly observing me. I had no idea why.

  I didn’t tell Judith about him when I carried in the tea and toast that night. Policemen to Judith are men who give you tickets when you park a car or hale you up in traffic court for one thing or another. But I felt a little safer having him, so to speak, on call. He looked so reliable.

  I saw him only once again during the trip. That was the same night. After I had rubbed Judith’s back, given her two sleeping-pills, and heard her lock herself in, I wandered back to the club car again. He was where I had seen him first, only he had abandoned the spectacles, which made him look younger. He got up when he saw me.

  “I was hoping you’d come,” he said. “I’ve kept this chair for you. Sister any better tonight?”

  “She’s just about the same,” I said. “She’s still locked away, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Still no idea why?”

  “No idea why.”

  He dropped the subject, got out a rather handsome cigarette case, and after giving me one took one himself.