If Death Ever Slept

“I took it because I was afraid something might happen. I knew how Dad felt about Susan, and I knew it was getting worse every day between him and Wyman, and I knew he had a gun in his drawer, and I hate guns anyway. I didn’t think any one thing-I didn’t think he would shoot Susan or Wyman would shoot him-I just thought something might happen. So Thursday morning I put it in my bag and went and got my car, and drove up the West Side Highway and onto George Washington Bridge, and stopped on the bridge and threw the gun in the river.”

She finished the drink and put the glass down. “Naturally I never intended to tell anybody. Friday morning, when the news came that Jim Eber had been shot, it never occurred to me that that had anything to do with Dad’s gun. How could it, when I knew Dad’s gun was in the river? Then that afternoon at Nero Wolfe’s office I saw how wrong I was. What he suggested, that whoever took the gun should put it out in sight somewhere, naturally I would have done that if I could-but I was afraid that if I told what I had done no one would believe me. It would sound like I was just trying to explain it away. Could I have a refill?”

I caught the waiter’s eye and gave him the sign.

She carried on. “Then Sunday, the news about Corey Brigham-of course that made it worse. And then yesterday, with Nero Wolfe again-you know how that was. And all day today, detectives and district attorneys with all of us-they were there all morning, and we have been at the district attorney’s office all afternoon, in separate rooms. Now I have to tell about it, I know that, but I don’t think they’ll believe me. I’m sure they won’t. But they will if you say you went with me and saw me throw it in the river.”

The waiter was coming with the refills, and I waited until he had gone.

“You left out something,” I told her. “You left out about hiring a crew of divers to search the river bottom and offering a trip to Hollywood and ten thousand dollars in cash to the one who found the gun.”

She surveyed me. “Are you being droll?”

“Not very. But that would give it color and would stand up just as well. Since you’ve been answering questions all day, I suppose you have accounted for your movements Thursday morning. What did you tell them?”

She nodded. “I’ll have to admit I lied, I know that. I told them that after breakfast I was on the terrace until about half past eleven, and then I went shopping, and then I went to lunch on the Bolivar. Now I’ll have to admit I didn’t go shopping.”