A. Fair - Bedrooms Have Windows

“Then they didn’t run into you. You ran into them?”

“They put their car directly in front of mine,” she said.

“I can understand how the insurance company would have looked at it.”

“Well, I can’t,” she flared, “and don’t expect any cooperation from me if you’re going to start sympathizing with that insurance company.”

“I’m not sympathizing,” I told her. “I just was trying to find out what happened.”

I had taken a notebook and pencil from my pocket. Now, without even having opened the notebook, I put book and pencil back in my pocket, and bowed. “I’m very happy to have met you. Mrs. Jasper, and thank you so much for having consented to see me.”

“But I haven’t told you all about the accident.”

I shifted my position uneasily and said, “Well... I think I understand the circumstances.”

She said angrily, “Simply because there are four people on the other side, you’re adopting the position that I must be in the wrong.”

“Not at all,” I told her. “I simply felt it wasn’t a case that would be interesting to the editor of the magazine for which I’m planning to do the writing.”

“Why?”

I said, “What I want to show is the danger inherent in compromising cases, where the insured party is actually in the right but where the insurance company feels that defending the case would involve too much effort. Therefore they let a majority of witnesses on the other side commit perjury and…”

“Well, why isn’t that exactly what happened in my case?”

I hesitated. “Were you seriously injured?”

“My left hip was injured.”

“Is it nearly healed now?”

“Yes. I’m able to walk now, but ever since the accident I’ve had spells of sciatica. I’m having a bad one now — air pillows, aspirin and pain.”

“I’m sorry,” I said sympathetically.

“And what’s more, I’m afraid that this accident is going to leave one leg shorter than the other, permanently.”

“That will be all right as soon as the muscles adjust themselves — in time.”

“In time!” she exclaimed scornfully.

I kept quiet.

She studied me for a moment, then said, “My legs have always looked — well, rather nice.”

She hesitated just the proper amount of time to make it appear that the desire to convince me had overcome her modesty, and then raised her skirt, showing me her left leg.

I whistled.

She jerked the skirt back down indignantly. “I didn’t show you that for you to whistle at!”

“No?” I asked.

She said, “I was simply proving a point.”

“Proving a curve, I would say.”

“You’re nice, but think of my other leg so much shorter it will be disfigured.” Tears came to her eyes.

“It won’t be short in the least.”

“It’s shorter now. My hip is pulled up. And it’s getting thinner than the other as I fail to use the muscles. And I’m — well, I’m not as young as I used to be.”

I smiled tolerantly.

“I tell you I’m not. How old do you think am?”

I pursed my lips, went through the motions of disinterested appraisal. “Well,” I said thoughtfully, “you’re probably past thirty-five, but it’s not fair to ask me that question, now, because a woman always looks older in a wheel-chair. If you were walking around I’d... well, I guess perhaps you are around thirty-five, at that.”

She beamed at me. “Do you think so?”

“Right around there.”

She said, “I’m forty-one.”

“What?” I exclaimed incredulously.

She simpered at me. “Forty-one.”

“Well, you certainly don’t look it!”

“I don’t feel it.”

I said, “Well, I’m going to tall on the insurance company and get all of the facts in your case. I think perhaps, after all, it’s something that would go well in an article.”

“I’m satisfied it will, and I do wish you’d write an article like that. I think it needs to be published. Insurance companies are altogether too conceited, too cocksure of themselves.”

“They’re corporations,” I told her. “They tend to wind themselves up in a lot of red tape.”

“I’ll say they do.”

I motioned towards the morning paper which was lying on a reading table near her wheel-chair. “Read about the murder?” I asked.

“What murder?”

“The one out in the COZY DELL SLUMBER COURT.”

“Oh,” she said casually, “that’s one of those love, murder and suicide things. I remember seeing the headlines.”

“You didn’t read the article?”

“No.”

“Some folks from Colorado,” I said. “I believe the man’s name was Stanwick Carlton — no, wait a minute, the man who was killed was Dover Fulton. He’s from San Robles. Stanwick Carlton is the husband of the girl who was killed in the tragedy — Minerva, I believe her name was.”

Mrs. Jasper nodded absently and said, “I’d like very much to have you get in touch with the insurance company. Ask for Mr. Smith and get him to give you his version of what happened. Then I’d like to know just what he tells you. Do you suppose you could get in touch with me and let me know?”

“I might.”

“I’d really appreciate it. So you’re a writer. What do you write?”

“Oh, all sorts of things.”

“Under your own name?”

“No, mostly under pen names and sometimes anonymously.”

“Why do you do that?”

I grinned. “I write lots of true confession stories, and…”

“You mean to tell me those things aren’t true?”

“The ones I write aren’t.”

“But I thought they were.”

“Oh, I get facts out of real life and then I dress them up and tell them in first person. I’m always interested in divorces and murders, and things of that sort.”

“That’s why you asked about that murder?”

“I guess so, yes.”

She said, “I’ve always wanted to do some writing. Is it difficult?”

“Not in the least. You just’ put yourself on paper. It’s surprising how easy the words come.”

“But if it’s easy, why aren’t more people writing?”

“They are,” I said.

“Well,” she said, “you know what I mean — selling things to the magazines.”

“Oh, selling!” I exclaimed, and shook my head. “That’s terrible! The writing’s easy. You just go ahead and write the stuff. But trying to sell it, that’s where the rub comes.”

She laughed then and said, “You do think of the most humorous things, Mr. Lam. Won’t you sit down and talk with me a little longer?”

“I hate to presume on…”

“Well, after all, it’s Sunday and I’m here alone, and — of course, I don’t want to take up your time.”

“Not at all,” I told her. “It’s a pleasure — I’ll bet there’d be some red faces on the adjusters in that insurance company if I should uncover some new witness who would show that the accident absolutely was the fault of the other side, I think the insurance company knows what I’m doing and resents it, and are going to try to pin something on me so I can’t go ahead.”

“Well, I like that! Don’t you let them do it!”

I said diffidently, “I started to call on you yesterday, and then got frightened away.” I smiled, and then let my smile grow into a laugh of polite deprecation for my own timidity.

“You were frightened away?”

“Yes.”

“What frightened you?”

“A young, well-dressed chap I thought was a detective.”

“Why, whatever happened, Mr. Lam?”

I said, “He was tall and was wearing a grey double-breasted suit and was smoking a cigarette. He got out of his car at just about the same time I did, and looked me over. Then he walked past me and came up the steps and rang the bell here at the house. I drove around the block and parked where I could watch his car. I waited for him to come out. I thought — well, I felt sure that he was a detective working for the insurance company and checking up on me. I almost passed you up. But your case was exactly typical of the cases I wanted to investigate, so I decided to make another try.”