Fletcher Flora - The First Golden Age of Mystery & Crime MEGAPACK™ - 26 Stories by Fletcher Flora

“Mr. Gray and Mr. Fleming seem to have been extremely compatible. Share apartment. Share car. Share girl. Most commendable. Where is the car kept?”

“There’s a garage at the rear, just off the alley. Stall number five. The automobile, if you wish to know, is a Ford. I’m not sure of the model. Recent, however.”

“Thanks again. You’ve been most helpful.”

Marcus turned with his sometimes offensive abruptness and went out of the building and around to the garage. Stall number five was occupied by a 1960 Ford. Mr. Fleming, wherever he was, was obviously moving either by shank’s mare or in some other vehicle than his own. Marcus, in the one furnished by the department, drove to the address on the memo sheet, and this time it was unnecessary to disturb the superintendent, for there was a directory of tenants in the entrance hall that told him where to go, and he went.

The photographer who had taken Sandra Shore’s picture, he learned, was an artist. He had caught on paper precisely the elfin and haunting quality of her face. The sadness and tenderness and passion assembled in the lean heart. Now, in person, there was more, of course. A small and slender body exquisitely formed, suggesting its delights in a boyish white blouse and a narrow skirt. Marcus, in the hall, held his hat and offered up a short and silent paean.

“Yes?” Sandra Shore said.

“My name is Marcus,” Marcus said. “Lieutenant Joseph Marcus. Of the police. I wonder if I may speak with you for a few minutes?”

She surveyed him gravely, her head cocked a little to one side.

“Whatever for?”

“It will take only a few minutes. I’d appreciate it very much.”

“Well, if you are actually a policeman, you will certainly speak with me whether I am willing or not, so there isn’t really much use in asking my permission, is there?”

“It distresses me, but I must admit that you’re right. Thank you for clarifying the situation so nicely. May I come in?”

She nodded and closed the door after him, when he was across the threshold. Following her into the living room to a chair in which he sat, he admired her neat ankles and lovely legs. When she was in another chair across from him, the narrow skirt tucked primly beneath her knees, which showed, he continued to admire the legs for a moment, discreetly, but soon went back to her face, which was the best of her, after all, in spite of distractions.

“You don’t look like a policeman,” she said.

“Don’t I? I wouldn’t know. What is a policeman supposed to look like?”

“I’m not sure. Not like you, however. What do you wish to speak with me about?”

“Not what, really. Who. A young man named Alexander Gray.”

“Alex?” She managed to appear slightly incredulous without, somehow, disturbing the serenity of her expression. “What possible interest could the police have in Alex?”

“He’s dead. Murdered, apparently. Someone shot him sometime early this morning on the course of the Greenbrier Golf Club.”

She sat quite still, her only movement the folding of her hands in her lap. In her great, grave eyes there was a slight darkening, as if a light had been turned down.

“That’s ridiculous.”

“The truth is often ridiculous. Things don’t seem to make sense.”

“Alex isn’t even a member of the Greenbrier Golf Club.”

“Apparently you don’t have to be a member to be killed on the course.”

“I simply refuse to believe you. It’s cruel of you to come here and tell me such a lie.”

“It would be cruel if I did. And pointless.”

“I see what you mean. You would have no reason. Unless there’s a reason that I can’t understand. Is there?”

“No. None whatever. Surely you realize that.”

“I suppose I do. I suppose I must believe you after all.” She stood up suddenly and walked over to a window and stood there for a minute looking out, slim and erect against the glass, her pale hair catching afire from the slanting light. Then she returned, sitting again, tucking the skirt and folding her hands. “Poor Alex,” she said. “Poor little Alex.”

He hadn’t been so little. Average height, at least, but Marcus skipped it. Miss Sandra Shore was striking him as a remarkable young woman. There was genuine grief in her voice, in her darkened eyes, but her face was in repose, fixed as serenely in shock and grief as it had been in the photograph.

“You are very composed under the circumstances,” he said. “I’m relieved and thankful.”

“Perhaps I can’t quite accept it yet, in spite of knowing that it must be true.”

“Sometimes it takes a while for things to hit us hard. Do you feel like talking with me now?”

“What do you want to know?”

“You were a good friend of Alexander Gray’s. Is that true?”

“Yes, it’s true, but I can’t imagine how you know. Unless you’ve talked with Rufe. Have you?”

“Rufus Fleming? No. I’d like to talk with him, however. I don’t know where he is.”

“Have you been to the apartment? Alex and Rufe lived together, you know.”

“Yes, I know. I’ve been there. Do you have any idea where Fleming could be?”

“Just out somewhere, I imagine. He’ll show up soon.”

“His car was in the garage.”

“Rufe often walks places. Quite long distances sometimes. He enjoys it.”

“There was a photograph of you in their apartment. A very good one. I noticed that it was inscribed to both Gray and Fleming. All your love. Were you an equally good friend to both?”

“Equally? That’s so hard to judge, isn’t it? I loved them both. I still love them both, even though Alex must be dead, since you say so.”

“Did they both love you?”

“Oh, yes. We all loved each other.”

“Isn’t that a rather unusual relationship to exist among two men and a woman?”

“I don’t think so. Perhaps it is. It has been that way for so long that it seems perfectly natural to me.”

“Didn’t it ever get complicated?”

“Well, it was difficult in certain ways. They both loved me and wanted to marry me, and I loved both of them, which was all right, and wanted to marry both of them, which was not, and that’s where the difficulty was.”

“I understand. Bigamy is no solution. Besides being illegal.”

“Yes. Anyhow, I couldn’t bear to marry one of them and not the other, for that would surely have meant giving up entirely the one I didn’t marry. If only I could have married one of them and kept the other one around as always, it would have been all right, but it wouldn’t have worked, I’m sure, for a husband is different from a friend, no matter how good and tolerant he may be, and will become possessive and insistent upon his rights and resentful of the attentions to his wife of another man.”

Marcus didn’t quite believe her. Not her words. He believed them , all right. He didn’t quite believe her . That she existed. That she was sitting this instant in the chair across from him with her knees together and her skirt tucked in. He was, in fact, more than a little confused by what seemed at once perfectly logical and utterly insane. That was it, he decided. It was logical, but nuts. There was not necessarily any contradiction in that.

“You said this relationship had existed for a long time,” he said. “How long?”

“Oh, years and years. Ages. Since we were very young.”

“You all knew each other then?”

“Isn’t that what I said? Went through school together and have remained close to each other since.”

“It’s strange, to say the least, that two men should remain such friends in such circumstances.”

“Well, they were very sweet and tolerant and understanding, and they kept thinking something could be worked out, but, as I said, there was no way to work it satisfactorily.”